hollydolly
SF VIP
- Location
- London England
Doctors in China have identified the world’s youngest case of Alzheimer’s disease in a 19-year-old, yet scientists are baffled as to how he developed the memory-robbing condition at such a young age.
The unnamed teen boy first began experiencing memory decline at 17. He often forgot what he did the day before and was always misplacing his belongings. He was eventually unable to graduate from high school, though he could still live on his own.
Before he was formally diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, the teen was sent to a memory care clinic for about a year, where experts found that his overall memory score was 82 percent lower than that of his peers of the same age and his immediate memory score was 87 percent lower.
In 2022, brain scans showed shrinkage in the hippocampus, a crucial memory formation region in the brain and one of the first areas affected by Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia that affects roughly 6.7 million Americans.
Doctors at that clinic analyzed his cerebrospinal fluid and detected telltale markers of the disease, including abnormal levels of amyloid and tau proteins.
When they conducted a thorough search of his DNA for mutations that made him more susceptible to the disease, they found nothing.
Alzheimer's is typically a disease of the elderly, but recent studies have suggested rates among people under 50 are on the rise.
According to a report from Blue Cross Blue Shield, diagnoses among commercially insured adults aged 30 to 64 surged by 200 percent between 2013 and 2017.
read the full story here...
Teen boy, 19, believed to be youngest person to ever with dementia
The unnamed teen boy first began experiencing memory decline at 17. He often forgot what he did the day before and was always misplacing his belongings. He was eventually unable to graduate from high school, though he could still live on his own.
Before he was formally diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, the teen was sent to a memory care clinic for about a year, where experts found that his overall memory score was 82 percent lower than that of his peers of the same age and his immediate memory score was 87 percent lower.
In 2022, brain scans showed shrinkage in the hippocampus, a crucial memory formation region in the brain and one of the first areas affected by Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia that affects roughly 6.7 million Americans.
Doctors at that clinic analyzed his cerebrospinal fluid and detected telltale markers of the disease, including abnormal levels of amyloid and tau proteins.
When they conducted a thorough search of his DNA for mutations that made him more susceptible to the disease, they found nothing.
Alzheimer's is typically a disease of the elderly, but recent studies have suggested rates among people under 50 are on the rise.
According to a report from Blue Cross Blue Shield, diagnoses among commercially insured adults aged 30 to 64 surged by 200 percent between 2013 and 2017.
read the full story here...
Teen boy, 19, believed to be youngest person to ever with dementia
