Dr Chris Hardy

What is your area of research as it relates to FTD?

I have two main research interests:

– Peripheral and central hearing dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases
– Characterising symptom progression in progressive aphasias and related disorders

My work suggests that dementia syndromes such as Alzheimer’s disease, and the rarer primary progressive aphasias (PPAs) are associated with specific ‘auditory phenotypes’. This corroborates reports from patients and caregivers, who regularly report diverse and striking hearing problems. A major focus of my current research is in exploring whether tests of complex ‘brain hearing’ can detect dementia at its earliest stages, and perhaps even pre-symptomatically.

I am also working on the development of a staging system for PPA. Most people who receive a diagnosis of PPA have never heard of it before, and have many questions about what will happen to them, and when, that we are currently not in a position to answer. Working with members of the UK PPA Support Group that I co-lead, we have started to develop a staging-system for PPA that I hope will give people an idea of which symptoms they might experience, and when they might experience them.