About 900,000 people in France suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative pathology which is characterized in particular by memory problems, executive function disorders (planning, problem solving, etc.) and orientation difficulties in the time and in space.
Alzheimer’s disease is rare before the age of 65. After this pivotal age, 2% to 4% of the population suffers from this pathology; after age 80, this proportion rises to 15%. When Alzheimer’s disease is of hereditary origin (only 1.5% to 2% of cases), it can appear around the age of 45.
Also, the case of this Chinese aged 19 and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease questions the medical community. For this young man, it all started with memory loss and difficulty concentrating: the teenager could no longer read, find things, remember if he had eaten or not…
No genetic risk factors
The young patient (without a family history of neurodegenerative or psychiatric illnesses) was treated at the hospital in Beijing (China), where he underwent a battery of examinations.
The WHO-UCLA AVLT test (designed to assess his short-term and long-term memory) was found to be abnormal. The MRI examination, meanwhile, showed a beginning atrophy of certain regions of the brain. Finally, the FDG-PET examination (which makes it possible to evaluate the activity of the different cerebral areas) also gave results characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
On the other hand, genetically, the young patient did not present any particular risk factors: concretely, he was not a carrier of the APOE4 gene, which multiplies by 15 the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
This exceptional case will be the subject of numerous additional examinations to confirm the diagnosis of Chinese doctors.
Source :Journal of Alzheimer’s Diseases
