what's the difference? Best I can tell Pick is strictly limited to frontal and temporal lobe involvement whereas Alzheimers can involve the whole cortex(but preferentially the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes). The only histopath difference is that the intracellular tau in AD is hyperphosporylated and called "NF tangles" while the intracellular aggregated tau in Picks disease are called Pick bodies. In terms of symptoms you get dementia with both obviously, and things like disinhibition/parkinsonian symptoms, and aphasia which are associated with Pick's also come about in AD(except only sometimes PD symptoms)..... so what(except for the frontotemporal only involvement in picks) are the meaningful/testable differences between these two?
well you won't get amyloid angiopathy or senile plaques in Pick's. Pick's is really only gonna give you a triad of frontotemporal dimentia, semantic dimentia, and progressive nonfluent aphasia (+ some parkinsonian symptoms). Alzheimer's is really just impairment of higher intellectual function without any focal neurological deficits. im sure if they ask a question differentiating the two, it'll be obvious.
They also have different epidemiologies --- Pick's is more common in women and affects a younger age group than Alzheimer's.
are they going to let you bring that textbook with you to the exam? the key is behavioral abnormalities. people with Pick's disease will be brought in by family members who will say "he just isn't acting right" or "he's been angrier/more reclusive recently" coupled with memory loss. they will often be inappropriate and may use language (i.e. cursing) that they have never used before. alzheimer's typically doesn't give you these symptoms, as its more a progressive memory loss.
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