As part of an ongoing organizational effort to provide vital FTD education to healthcare professionals, AFTD held its first webinar offering continuing medical education (CME) credits on February 22.

Guest speaker Howard Rosen, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco offered insight on the differences between behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) and other forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, allowing healthcare professionals to make earlier and accurate bvFTD diagnoses.

Because there is no single test that can conclusively diagnose FTD during life, the disease remains difficult to differentiate from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, or other psychiatric conditions. Doctors and neurologists arrive at an FTD diagnosis by evaluating results from procedures such as brain scans with their own observations. On average, it takes families 3.6 years after symptoms emerge to get a diagnosis of FTD.

“Many families have struggled to get a timely and accurate FTD diagnosis,” said AFTD Education Program Manager William Reiter. “AFTD is pleased to offer our first education program specifically created for doctors and other healthcare professionals in an effort to change that.”

AFTD launched its Healthcare Professional Webinar series in June 2022, offering continuing education credits (CECs) via Rush University to those who attend the webinars live. (All AFTD webinars are recorded and archived on AFTD’s YouTube page.)

The first three Healthcare Professional Webinars focused on providing person-centered care for people diagnosed with bvFTD, primary progressive aphasia, and the two movement disorders that fall under the FTD umbrella, corticobasal syndrome and progressive supranuclear palsy.

Nurses and social workers who work with persons diagnosed with FTD and attended these webinars were eligible to apply for CECs. AFTD expanded the scope of this series in February by offering CME credits to physicians, along with CECs. More than 270 people attended the February webinar with Dr. Rosen (a member of AFTD’s Medical Advisory Council).

The next webinar offering CME credits was held April 13; Dr. Simon Ducharme of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and the Montreal Neurological Institute spoke about treating symptoms for people living with bvFTD.

Statistics from AFTD’s First Webinar Offering CME Credits

85% Registrants who identified themselves as a healthcare professional

96% Described February 22 webinar as “excellent” or “very good”

95% Said they will apply what they learned in the workplace