A 19-year-old man in China is the youngest person ever to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The case, presented in a recent issue of the Journal for Alzheimer's Disease, described a male teenager from Beijing who began experiencing gradual memory loss and difficulty concentrating at the age of 17.
A 19-year-old teenager from China has been diagnosed with “probable” Alzheimer's disease, after having memory problems since the age of 17. If the diagnosis is correct, he will be the youngest person ever to be recorded with the disease.
In some instances, dementia symptoms can appear in the youngest of children and babies and progress quickly. While for other children like Angelina, symptoms may not start until they are teenagers. All children with dementia, however, face one common challenge: childhood dementia is progressive.
While age is still the biggest risk factor for dementia, people in their 50s and 40s (and even 30s and 20s) can also develop dementia. We call this young onset dementia. Young onset dementia accounts for an estimated 2 to 8% of all dementia cases.
Childhood dementia results from progressive brain damage and is caused by over 70 rare genetic disorders including Niemann-Pick type-C, Batten disease and Sanfilippo syndrome. Broadly, there are different groups or types of childhood dementia disorders which include: Inborn errors of metabolism. Lysosomal disorders.
As of 2020, it is estimated that around 700,000 children around the world are currently living with childhood dementia, which is caused by more than seventy different genetic conditions. Childhood dementia can be diagnosed during infancy and in children aged up to 18.
There is currently no "cure" for dementia. In fact, because dementia is caused by different diseases it is unlikely that there will be a single cure for dementia. Research is aimed at finding cures for dementia-causing diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies.
Memory and other thinking problems have many possible causes, including depression, an infection, or medication side effects. Sometimes, the problem can be treated, and cognition improves. Other times, the problem is a brain disorder, such as Alzheimer's disease, which cannot be reversed.
For most people with Alzheimer's — those who have the late-onset variety — symptoms first appear in their mid-60s or later. When the disease develops before age 65, it's considered early-onset Alzheimer's, which can begin as early as a person's 30s, although this is rare.
Forgetfulness can arise from stress, depression, lack of sleep or thyroid problems. Other causes include side effects from certain medicines, an unhealthy diet or not having enough fluids in your body (dehydration). Taking care of these underlying causes may help resolve your memory problems.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
There are many reasons kids are forgetful, including stress and lack of sleep. Being hungry can also have a big impact. But sometimes when kids have trouble remembering information, they may be struggling with a skill called working memory.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
It is caused by changes in the brain, including abnormal buildups of proteins known as amyloid plaques and tau tangles. Frontotemporal dementia, a rare form of dementia that tends to occur in people younger than 60. It is associated with abnormal amounts or forms of the proteins tau and TDP-43.
There are about twice as many women over 65 with Alzheimer's as there are men over 65 with the condition. This is mostly because women tend to live longer than men. However, women over the age of 80 still have a slightly higher risk of getting Alzheimer's than men their age.
Many people affected by dementia are concerned that they may inherit or pass on dementia. The majority of dementia is not inherited by children and grandchildren. In rarer types of dementia there may be a strong genetic link, but these are only a tiny proportion of overall cases of dementia.
Alzheimer's disease – around eight to 10 years. Life expectancy is less if the person is diagnosed in their 80s or 90s. A few people with Alzheimer's live for longer, sometimes for 15 or even 20 years. Vascular dementia – around five years.
Memory loss in young adults is almost always a direct result of an unhealthy lifestyle that includes a lack of sleep, excess stress, a poor diet, and recreational substance use.
Memory problems such as forgetfulness and poor working memory are linked to ADHD. People with ADHD may have difficulty encoding and processing information in their working memory, which may lead to problems with long-term memory.
Memory loss warning signs: When should you worry? Walking into a room and forgetting why you entered. Getting lost in familiar surroundings. Having trouble recalling the names of unfamiliar people.
As the brain continues to grow throughout adolescence, this development will affect functionality in different parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex. Focus, planning, memory, and the control of social behaviors can become hit or miss due to the growth happening in the brain.
People often live for years with dementia. While it can be difficult to think of these diseases as terminal, they do eventually lead to death. Caregivers often experience special challenges surrounding the end of life of someone with dementia in part because the disease progression is so unpredictable.
Excessive alcohol consumption over a lengthy time period can lead to brain damage, and may increase your risk of developing dementia. However, drinking alcohol in moderation has not been conclusively linked to an increased dementia risk, nor has it been shown to offer significant protection against developing dementia.
There are treatments that can help with the symptoms of some forms of dementia for a period of time, but there are currently no treatments that slow, halt or reverse the changes in the brain caused by the diseases.