Is Alzheimers A Mental Illness Or Physical Illness
Alzheimers disease is treatable, but not curable. Treating Alzheimers disease helps to slow its devastating progression and assists in providing quality of life through the multiple stages of the disease. Dementia affects both mental and physical health, but it is not strictly defined as mental illness.
Assay And Technical Information
Invitae is a College of American Pathologists -accredited and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments -certified clinical diagnostic laboratory performing full-gene sequencing and deletion/duplication analysis using next-generation sequencing technology .
Our sequence analysis covers clinically important regions of each gene, including coding exons and 10 to 20 base pairs of adjacent intronic sequence on either side of the coding exons in the transcript listed below, depending on the specific gene or test. In addition, the analysis covers select non-coding variants. Any variants that fall outside these regions are not analyzed. Any limitations in the analysis of these genes will be listed on the report. Contact client services with any questions.
| Gene |
|---|
Frontotemporal Dementia With Parkinsonism
One form of familial FTD, also known as frontotemporal dementia with Parkinsonism-17 , is caused by genetic changes in the gene for tau protein, located on chromosome 17. No other risk factors for this condition are known.
FTDP-17 is rare and accounts for only three per cent of all cases of dementia. Symptoms progressively get worse over time and usually appear between the ages of 40 and 60. The condition affects both thinking and behavioural skills and movements such as rigidity, lack of facial expression and problems with balance .
It can be distressing to be told that you have a genetic disorder or are at risk of having one. Genetic counselling provides the person and their family with information about a genetic disorder and its likely impact on their lives. This can assist a person with FTDP-17 to make informed medical and personal decisions about how to manage their condition and the challenges it presents to their health and wellbeing. Prenatal genetic counselling is also available for parents to help them decide about a pregnancy that may be at risk of FTDP-17.
You May Like: Jigsaw Puzzles Alzheimer’s
Who Gets Early Onset Alzheimer’s
Earlyonset Alzheimer’sAlzheimer’sAlzheimer’searlyonset
. Just so, what age is considered early onset Alzheimer’s?
Alzheimer disease most commonly affects older adults, but it can also affect people in their 30s or 40s. When Alzheimer disease occurs in someone under age 65, it is known as early-onset Alzheimer disease.
Also Know, is early onset Alzheimer’s more aggressive? Early onset Alzheimer’s produces the same symptoms as traditional cases of the disease. Therefore, the signs aren’t always recognized as the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Early Onset Alzheimer’s Progresses Faster. The second difference is that early onset is more aggressive than the late-onset form of the disease.
Additionally, what causes early onset Alzheimer’s?
Early–onset Alzheimer’s disease occurs between a person’s 30s to mid-60s and represents less than 10 percent of all people with Alzheimer’s. Some cases are caused by an inherited change in one of three genes. For other cases, research shows that other genetic components are involved.
Is early onset Alzheimers genetic?
Early onset familial Alzheimer disease is hereditary and marked by Alzheimer disease symptoms that appear at an unusually early age. Having a pathogenic mutation in one of these three genes virtually guarantees that one will develop early onset Alzheimer disease.
Risk Genes And Alzheimers
Risk genes are genes that dont directly cause dementia or Alzheimers. Those who have these risk genes do have a greater chance of developing the disease. However, if you have them, they do NOT guarantee that you will get it.
This is what the research says about risk genes and Alzheimers
Lets take an example of someone who has these risk genes AND has a parent diagnosed with Alzheimers Disease. In this case there does appear to be an increased risk of developing the disease.
This risk of someone in this situation getting Alzheimers over the course of their lifetime is about twice that of someone who has no family history of the disease.
You May Like: Alzheimer’s Disease Color Ribbon
Who Is More Prone To Dementia
4.9/5dementiaAlzheimer’sdementiadementia
Risk Factors for Dementia
- Age. The risk of Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and several other dementias goes up significantly with advancing age.
- Genetics/family history.
- Diabetes.
- Mild cognitive impairment.
Likewise, are certain personality types more prone to dementia? Certain personality traits like high levels of neuroticism and low conscientiousness may be linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, finds a study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
Simply so, who is more likely to get Alzheimer’s?
Age is the biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s. It mainly affects people over 65. Above this age, a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease doubles about every five years. One in six people over 80 have dementia many of them have Alzheimer’s disease.
What are the 10 warning signs of dementia?
These early signs of dementia are:
- Memory loss.
- Difficulty planning or solving problems.
- Difficulty doing familiar tasks.
- Being confused about time or place.
- Challenges understanding visual information.
Impact Of Cognitive Changes On Communication
The cognitive changes associated with dementia can have a significant impact on day-to-day communication. For example, a decline in memory, attention, executive functioning, and/or language processing can make it difficult to follow and participate in conversation.
Individuals may
With more significant cognitive decline,
- they may become disoriented to time and place
- they may have difficulty remembering recent events
- their verbal output may be reduced and less substantive and
- their ability to express thoughts, wants, and needs may be affected.
Don’t Miss: Alzheimer’s Awareness Ribbon
Is Dementia A Form Of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia was once labeled premature dementia, and some researchers considered that the two conditions were linked. The Oxford study now confirms that the same regions of the brain are affected in Alzheimers disease and schizophrenia. Questions about Alzheimers disease or a related dementia disorder?Sep 13, 2015.
Is Dementia Passed On Through Our Dna
Medical research seems to suggest that it is very unlikely that dementia can be passed on through our DNA. But in rare cases, some diseases that lead to dementia can be passed on through our DNA. But it is still extremly rare that if a family member such as a parent or grandparent has developed one of the many different kinds of dementia, that their children will inherit the disease at some stage in their life.
This is not to say that somebody with Alzheimers cannot have not passed on the disease from parent to child. It is possible they could have. In some rare cases of Alzheimers, the disease can be inherited from a parent. But this is very rare.There is a group of four genes a person can carry that can lead to a greater risk of Alzheimers. With 3 of the four genes being responsible for early onset dementia in people in their 30s, 40s and 50s with the other gene being responsible for Alzheimers in older people, usually over 65 years of age.
In the majority of cases of Alzheimers the disease is mostly associated with old age. Most cases are diagnosed with people in their 70s and 80s which is often referred to as Senile dementia.
Recommended Reading: How Fast Does Early-onset Alzheimer’s Progress
Genes And Frontotemporal Dementia
Frontotemporal dementia , originally called Picks disease, is a rarer type of dementia mostly affecting people under the age of 65 years. The symptoms of FTD can be quite varied but include changes that mostly affect behaviour or language. There are different types of FTD, and these are likely to have different causes.
Some people with FTD have a family history of dementia and the condition may be inherited in some of these families. For behavioural variant FTD, a third to half of people could have a family history. This figure is thought to be much lower for other types of FTD.
Overall, around one in ten cases of FTD are thought to be caused by a faulty gene passed down in families. Several genes have been found that can cause these inherited types of FTD, including:
- tau
- progranulin
Mutations in the MAPT gene can cause the tau protein to behave abnormally, forming toxic clumps that can damage brain cells. We still need to understand more about how mutations in progranulin and C9ORF72 cause the disease.
The C9ORF72 gene can cause people to develop motor neurone disease, FTD or both conditions, and may affect members of the same family differently.
In cases of FTD that are not caused by faulty genes, the risk factors are not yet fully understood, and research is ongoing.
Is genetic testing available for frontotemporal dementia?
Do Dementia Patients Know They Are Dying
People with advanced dementia may show some of these signs and symptoms for months or even years making it hard to tell if the person is approaching death. However, if these symptoms become much worse over a period of two to three weeks, or even days or hours, it is important that a doctor or nurse sees the person.
Also Check: Is Lewy Body Dementia Terminal
Rare Types Of Dementia
There are some unusual types of dementia that parents can pass down to their young ones.
It mainly happens when a person develops the illness at an early age, like in their 50s or 60s.
In the majority of these cases, there is a high chance that a faulty gene was passed down to the children from their parents. This is also the case when an individual ends up developing dementia in their 30s or 40s.
Generally, while a high percentage of people will not pass dementia to their kids, they can pass faulty genes that will be the cause of the disease in younger individuals.
Examples of the rare dementia types that parents pass on to their offspring include Familial Prion Disease and Huntingtons disease.
Such disorders present a 50/50 chance of being inherited because they are brought about by a faulty dormant gene.
What this means is that if you get one faulty gene from one parent and another healthy one from the other parent, the faulty one is the one that the body will use.
This is because the body sees it as the dominant gene.
If your doctor suspects that family history has anything to do with your condition, he or she may recommend genetic testing.
Relatives at this point may also have to go through genetic testing.
When the results are out, genetic counseling is normally offered to all the persons who carry the illness-related changes.
Roles And Responsibilities Of Audiologists
Audiologists play a critical role in the assessment and care of individuals with dementia. The professional roles and activities in audiology include clinical services related to hearing loss prevention and advocacy and education, administration, and research. See ASHA’s Scope of Practice in Audiology .
Appropriate roles for audiologists include the following:
As indicated in the Code of Ethics , audiologists who serve this population should be specifically educated and appropriately trained to do so. Given the relationship between hearing and dementia, audiologists who serve individuals with dementia require knowledge and skills in both areas as well as knowledge of cognitive-communication problems associated with dementia.
Most of the common dementia-associated diseases are progressive in nature, and audiologists have an ethical responsibility to provide appropriate services that will benefit the individual and maximize communication functioning at all stages of the disease process.
Assessment
See the Assessment section of the Dementia Evidence Map for pertinent scientific evidence, expert opinion, and client/caregiver perspective.
The diagnosis of dementia is made by a medical team. The role of the SLP is to assess cognitive-communication deficits related to dementia and to identify cultural, linguistic, and environmental influences that have an impact on functioning.
Don’t Miss: Smelling Farts Live Longer
New Frontiers For Ad Prevention And Treatment
New horizons for prevention and treatment might include how risk might be different for individuals of varied genetic ancestries and ethnicities both here in the US and abroad. The risk may also be different between males and females. Finally, biobanks can only describe association, not causation, between changes in lifestyle and dementia risk. To determine causation, randomized trials are required, and a new US-based randomized clinical trial called POINTER is now underway.
Trying to live a healthy lifestyle, despite its elusive definition, seems to be an obvious way to prevent dementia. What remains to be seen is how studies using biobanks can be informative about the millions of people who already may be suffering from the disease.
What Foods Kill Dementia
Cruciferous vegetables Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and other cruciferous vegetables contain sulforaphane, which powerfully assists in DNA repair. Theyre also high in folate and carotenoids, which lower homocysteine. High levels of this amino acid are linked to cognitive decline and dementia.
Don’t Miss: What Color Is The Dementia Ribbon
Causes Of Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is thought to be caused by the abnormal build-up of 2 proteins called amyloid and tau.
Deposits of amyloid, called plaques, build up around brain cells. Deposits of tau form “tangles” within brain cells.
Researchers do not fully understand how amyloid and tau are involved in the loss of brain cells, but research into this is continuing.
As brain cells become affected in Alzheimer’s, there’s also a decrease in chemical messengers involved in sending messages, or signals, between brain cells.
Levels of 1 neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, are particularly low in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Medicines like donepezil increase levels of acetylcholine, and improve brain function and symptoms.
These treatments are not a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but they do help improve symptoms.
Read more about treatments for dementia.
The symptoms that people develop depend on the areas of the brain that have been damaged by the disease.
The hippocampus is often affected early on in Alzheimer’s disease. This area of the brain is responsible for laying down new memories. That’s why memory problems are one of the earliest symptoms in Alzheimer’s.
Unusual forms of Alzheimer’s disease can start with problems with vision or with language.
Read more about Alzheimer’s disease.
Is Cheese Bad For Your Brain
Cheese. Pizza and cheese are the biggest sources of saturated fat in the American diet. As we mentioned with meat, this saturated fat clogs our brain vessels just like it clogs our heart vessels. Higher saturated fat is linked with inflammation of the brain, higher risk of stroke, and impaired memory.
Read Also: What Color Ribbon Is For Dementia
Do Dementia Patients Know What They Are Saying
These communication hiccups happen all the time to most people, but dementia affects the brain so that language problems become more noticeable. Someone with Alzheimers, for instance, wont remember phrases, or be able to learn new phrases. Slang and common expressions become hard or even impossible to remember.
What To Say To A Dementia Patient Who Wants To Go Home
Reassure the person verbally, and possibly with arm touches or hand-holding if this feels appropriate. Let the person know that they are safe. It may help to provide reassurance that the person is still cared about. They may be living somewhere different from where they lived before, and need to know theyre cared for.
Also Check: Does Alzheimers Run In Families
Don’t Miss: Dementia Awareness Color
Does Alzheimers Run In Families
Those who have a parent, brother or sister with Alzheimers are more likely to develop the disease. The risk increases if more than one family member has the illness. When diseases tend to run in families, either heredity , environmental factors, or both, may play a role.
What Are The 5 Worst Foods For Memory
The Worst Foods for Your Brain5 / 12. Diet Sodas and Drinks With Artificial Sweeteners. 6 / 12. French Fries and Other Fried Foods. 7 / 12. Doughnuts. 8 / 12. White Bread and White Rice. 9 / 12. Red Meat. 10 / 12. Butter and Full-Fat Cheese. 11 / 12. Swordfish and Ahi Tuna. 12 / 12. Bottled Dressings, Marinades, and Syrups.More itemsOct 28, 2020
Recommended Reading: Neurotransmitters Involved In Alzheimer’s
The Latest In Alzheimers And Dementia Testing
There are many tests today that can help determine whether you are at risk for Alzheimers or dementia. These include:
- Cognitive assessments. Medical professionals continue to refine their ability to evaluate and assess a persons cognitive health with motor skill and mental tests.
- Brain scans. Brain imaging can also shed light on alterations in the brain that may lead to or be causing dementia.
- Blood tests. Tests can detect a protein in the blood called NfL . It has proven to be an early biological marker for Alzheimers. Other tests can evaluate the level of amyloid and tau proteins in the blood.
- DNA testing. There are many tests available today that can detect the ApoE gene which has been associated with late-onset Alzheimers. Even genealogy companies like 23andMe can test for variants of the ApoE gene.
Does Dementia Run In Families
To date, researchers still do not have adequate details about the human genes that are associated with dementia.
While several genes may lead to different forms of dementia, mostly the illness does not develop because of changes to a specific gene.
Dementia genetics are quite complex, with several other factors weighing in.
This aside, lets look at some of the reasons why most people do not inherit dementia.
Also Check: Does Diet Coke Cause Dementia
Other Rare Types Of Dementia
Other rare types of dementia that can be passed down through the family include Huntingtons disease and Familial Prion disease. These diseases have a 50/50 chance of being passed on because they are caused by a single faulty dominant gene.
This means that, if you inherit a healthy gene from one parent and a faulty gene from the other parent, the faulty one will always be the one that is used because its the dominant gene.
For more information, care and support services, please refer to the Huntingtons Disease Association or the National Prion Clinic at UCL.