Posterior cortical atrophy: the “visual variant” of Alzheimer's disease
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70313/2718.7446.v15.n2.140Keywords:
posterior cortical atrophy, hemianopia, Alzheimer’s disease, magnetic resonance imaging, visual agnosiaAbstract
Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a neurologic syndrome characterized by early and progressive visual impairment with evidence of degeneration affecting the occipital, parietal and posterior temporal lobes bilaterally.
In most cases represents a focal form of Alzheimer’s disease, standing out within dementia pathologies for causing a highly disabling visual disorder with preserved cognitive status until advanced stages of the disease.
Although this entity is classified as neurological and presents clinical symptoms little known by the ophthalmologist, the visual compromise usually initially occurs in above 90% of the patients in several series.
Patients with PCA and their families usually describe many appointments with several specialists and a time-consuming search before this disorder is suspected.
The purpose of this review is to make bibliographic research on this pathology regarding the visual dysfunction of a patient with PCA, emphasizing mainly the visual manifestations generated in this neurological syndrome. The clinical-neurological symptomatology and its diagnostic criteria will only be exposed briefly since the complexity of the syndrome escapes from general ophthalmological interest.
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