Postmorbid learning of saxophone playing in a patient with frontotemporal dementia

However, no patients with FTD, to date, have been reported to be able to learn how to play a musical instrument after disease onset. Herein we describe a patient (J. K.) who had never played any musical instruments premorbidly, but who learned to play the saxophone after being diagnosed with a behavioral variant of FTD.

He mastered a repertoire that consisted of 10 pieces of Korean folk songs over a period of three years. Furthermore, his saxophone skills were high enough to outperform other students in his class.