Table 2

Frequency of abnormal eating behaviours in frontotemporal dementia, frontal variant (fv-FTD), semantic dementia (SD), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

	Frequency (%)
	fv-FTD	SD	AD	χ²	p Value
^afv-FTD>AD and SD>AD.
^bfv-FTD>AD.
^cSD>AD.
^dfv-FTD>SD.
(A) Swallowing problems
Difficulty in swallowing food	26	20	7	4.8	0.08
Difficulty in swallowing liquids	13	12	2	3.3	0.2
Ccoughs or chokes when swallowing	30	20	14	2.6	0.3
Takes a long time to swallow food or liquids	26	16	9	3.3	0.2
Places food in mouth but does not chews it	26	8	2	9.6	0.007^b
Chews food but does not swallows it	13	4	7	1.4	0.5

(B) Appetite change
Loss of appetite	30	8	16	4.3	0.1
Increase in appetite	61	28	9	20.0	0.000^b
Seeks out food between meals	57	40	9	17.8	0.000^a
Overeats at meal times	48	24	5	17.1	0.000^b
Requests larger or second helping of food	39	20	5	12.4	0.002^b
Reports hunger	30	20	9	4.8	0.09
Reports being overfull	9	16	12	0.6	0.8
Other changes in appetite, such a binges	30	32	5	10.6	0.004^a
Needs to limit food intake	26	12	2	8.7	0.008^b

(C) Food preference
Prefers sweet foods more than before	61	68	12	26.9	0.000^a
Drinks more soft drinks	43	24	2	17.3	0.000^a
Drinks more tea/coffee	35	36	7	10.7	0.005^a
“Taste” in food changed in another way (eg, eats more meat)	39	32	9	9.1	0.01
Adds more seasoning to their food (eg, adds more salt)	30	20	7	6.3	0.04
Developed other food fads	17	28	2	9.6	0.007^c
Hoards sweets or other food	13	16	2	4.4	0.1
Drinks more alcohol	30	16	2	10.6	0.006^b

(D) Eating habits
Wants to cook or eat exactly the same foods each days	26	40	5	13.2	0.001^c
Tends to eat foods in the same order	43	12	5	12.3	0.002^b
Wants to eat at the same time every day	52	56	9	20.7	0.000^a
Decline in table manners	61	64	12	24.8	0.000^a
Eats with hands	17	40	9	9.5	0.007^c
Takes a long time to eat	35	24	23	1.1	0.6

(E) Other oral behaviours
Tends to overfill mouth	39	28	9	8.5	0.01^b
Chews or sucks on things (eg, pens) without trying to eat them	26	8	0	12.7	0.001^b
Eats non-edible foodstuffs or things not normally eaten	9	20	0	8.9	0.009^c
Tends to snatch or grasp any food items within reach	30	16	2	10.6	0.006^b
Become a heavier smoker or taken up smoking again	26	0	5	11.9	0.002^d
Episodes of spontaneous vomiting	9	8	2	1.6	0.6
Episodes of self induced vomiting	4	0	0	3.0	0.3