Pick’s Disease

Pick’s disease is a rare neurodegenerative disorder that causes progressive destruction of nerve cells in the brain. Symptoms include loss of speech (aphasia), personality changes, and dementia. The disease is fatal and most patients often die within 2 to 10 years. It is a specific pathology that is one of the causes of frontotemporal dementia, and similarly to frontotemporal dementia, Pick’s disease is a “tauopathy” characterized by build-up of abnormally aggregated tau in neurons in spherical lesions known as “Pick bodies”.