Interventions to support informal carers managing behavioral symptoms in frontotemporal lobar degeneration: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVE

Informal carers of people living with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) face significant challenges in managing complex behavioral symptoms, yet disease specific support remains limited. This scoping review explored non-pharmacological interventions developed to support this carer population.

METHODS

Database searches were conducted across Medline, APA PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, E-Journals, and Scopus from January 2011 to November 2025, supplemented by hand searching, identifying nine included studies.

RESULTS

Interventions broadly comprised occupational therapy-based activity programmes, psychoeducational approaches, and web-based self-management tools. The majority of studies were feasibility or acceptability studies, with findings generally positive; however, behavioral symptoms were inconsistently reported, and sample sizes were small, highlighting that evidence remains at an early stage.

CONCLUSION

Despite the promising nature of existing approaches, structured implementation of non-pharmacological interventions to support informal carers manage behavioral symtoms into clinical practice remains absent. Translating feasible and acceptable interventions into accessible, disease-specific support for carers of people living with FTLD is urgently needed.