19-year-old boy suffers from Alzheimer's disease, test yourself now!

Recently, a paper by Capital Medical University

Paper written by Jia Jianping's team from Xuanwu Hospital

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The patient's age sparked heated debate

Such a young boy

Suffering from Alzheimer's disease

This is quite different from everyone's impression.

In fact, the 19-year-old boy introduced in the article

The youngest person to have Alzheimer's disease

So, many young people are now "forgetful"

Could it be a precursor to Alzheimer's disease?

According to the information provided by the research team, the patient began to have difficulty concentrating when studying two years before the consultation. One year later, he had obvious short-term memory loss and was unable to recall what happened the previous day or the location of his personal belongings. He also had difficulty reading and his reaction was slow.

As the disease progressed, his memory further deteriorated. He often lost personal belongings, could not remember whether he had eaten, and had difficulty completing his studies and homework. Due to the severe memory loss, his academic performance dropped from above average to the bottom of the class. He was unable to complete his studies and had to drop out of high school.

Image source: People's Daily Health Client

Although patients in their 20s have been found to have Alzheimer's disease before, these patients often have gene mutations or family histories. However, the paper states: "After a comprehensive examination, we confirmed that this patient had no family history and that gene mutations could not be found using existing methods. This situation is indeed extremely rare."

PART1.

Is Alzheimer's disease getting younger? Don't panic!

In fact, memory is related to many factors. For most people, "forgetting things" is often functional, not because there is really something wrong with the brain.

In contrast, Alzheimer's disease cannot be reversed with current scientific and technological means. If a person's adverse factors such as fatigue and poor nutrition have improved, but the cognitive state has not recovered for a long time, the patient needs to go to the hospital for examination in time.

Professor Zhang Baorong, director of the Department of Neurology at Zhejiang University Second Hospital, said that this 19-year-old patient was an extremely rare case and the public did not need to worry too much.

More than 99% of Alzheimer's disease patients are believed to be caused by multiple factors and multiple genes. The age of onset of these patients is generally after the age of 65, which is also called "late-onset Alzheimer's disease" or "late-onset dementia."

Among Alzheimer's patients visiting the Department of Neurology at Zhejiang University Second Hospital, 85%-90% are over 60 years old.

PART2.

How to tell

Forgetfulness and Alzheimer's disease?

Alzheimer's patients show symptoms of decreased cognitive function, behavioral disorders, and decreased living ability. However, many elderly people also suffer from forgetfulness as they age. How can we distinguish them? Generally speaking, the difference between the two is reflected in the following 6 aspects:

1. Recent memory impairment & short-term memory impairment

Senile amnesia manifests as partial impairment of recent memory, which can be recalled after prompting, while Alzheimer's disease is mainly characterized by complete impairment of short-term memory, which cannot be recalled even after prompting.

Image source: Beijing News

2.

No cognitive impairment **&** Executive, visual-spatial, and language impairments

Senile amnesia is not accompanied by other cognitive impairments, while Alzheimer's patients often have disorders of executive function, visual-spatial function, and language function.

3.

Normal mood & indifferent

Forgetful elderly people will maintain normal emotions such as happiness, anger, sadness, and joy, while Alzheimer's patients often become indifferent and lack basic emotional expressions.

4.

Clear thinking & Confused thinking

Forgetful elderly people have clear thinking, language expression, reasoning and analytical abilities, while Alzheimer's patients have confused thinking, poor language, and lack sound reasoning and analytical abilities.

5.

Worried about poor memory & not aware of memory loss

Forgetful elderly people often express great anxiety about their poor memory, while Alzheimer's patients are unaware of their memory loss.

6.

Able to take care of themselves **&** gradually lose the ability to take care of themselves

Forgetful elderly people can maintain normal self-care ability, while elderly people with Alzheimer's disease will gradually lose the ability to take care of themselves even if they do not have physical illness.

PART3.

How to self-test

Do you have Alzheimer's disease?

You can do a simple self-test at home by drawing a clock to detect early-stage Alzheimer's patients.

Draw a clock on a piece of white paper, write the hour numbers in order, and mark the direction of the pointer at 11:10. The judgment criteria must meet three points:

The face of a clock may have slight imperfections, but it must be round;

Write the twelve numbers accurately without overlapping or misaligned positions; there must be two pointers, pointing to the correct time together, the hour hand must be significantly shorter than the minute hand, and the intersection of the pointers must be close to the center of the clock.

Image source: Healthy Chengdu official microblog

If the tester meets the above three requirements, then it should be normal; but if one or two of them have problems, then there may be some early problems that require early treatment at the hospital.

END

Source: China Youth Daily, China News Network, Beijing News

Jinguan News, Healthy Chengdu Official Weibo

Compiled by: Dong Xiaoxian

Editor: Guru