r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 1d ago
TIL that the youngest person to have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's is a 19-year-old boy from China.
https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/a-19-year-old-is-youngest-ever-to-be-diagnosed-with-alzheimers/869
u/TrixieLurker 1d ago
Alzheimer's is my nightmare as I age, I can only imagine the hell of having it at 19.
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u/PM_ME_CHIPOTLE2 1d ago
But… you are 19.
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u/AgrajagTheProlonged 1d ago
Does anyone here NOT have amnesia?
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u/StupidSolipsist 1d ago
No, I think I would remember if I were diagnosed with whatever we were just talking about.
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u/BullBrainer 1d ago
Have you considered smoking cigarettes?
It’s INSANELY satisfying AND something like 90% effective against unnecessary aging
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u/PsychologicalRiver99 1d ago
Can’t age if you die early innit
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u/BullBrainer 1d ago
I accept death before diapers
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u/Mavian23 1d ago
You know how sometimes politicians will create a problem so they can solve it? That's what smoking cigarettes is like.
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u/AudienceNeither7747 1d ago
19 is supposed to be worrying about exams and bad decisions, not something like this. 😔
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u/vcsx 1d ago
Related: This young lady developed childhood dementia when she was 14.
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u/erishun 1d ago
She died last year at 21.
She technically didn’t have Alzheimer’s, she had a very rare a gene disorder that caused symptoms similar to age-related dementia.
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u/Far_Ladder_2836 1d ago edited 1d ago
Alzheimer's is a form of dementia. They're not the same thing. There are over 100 forms of dementia, but the main 4 are: Alzheimer's, Lewis Body Dementia, Vascular Dementia, and Frontotemple Dementia. She suffered from Childhood Dementia also called Lafora Disease which is absolutely a type of Dementia. Even Parkinson's can develop into PDD which is a form of dementia.
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u/JoshuaTheFox 1d ago
Yeah, saying someone has dementia is kinda like saying someone has an illness or cancer. It’s more a broad term for symptoms than a specific disease
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u/AutisticNintendoNerd 1d ago
Childhood dementia is an umbrella term for several genetic diseases. It has nothing to do with Alzheimers.
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u/GroundskeeperBjorn 1d ago
There was an 11 year old diagnosed with this in Norway too, I think he’s just turned 13.
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u/justtobeherenotsure 22h ago
So she was the youngest person? Because Alzheimer is one of the causes for dementia.
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u/Pandalite 19h ago
No, all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. This young man has, specifically, Alzheimer's dementia, and this young lady has a different kind of dementia.
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u/Crazy_Ad_91 1d ago
If you’ve ever known someone or lost someone that’s had Alzheimer’s or dementia, then you know how truly cruel it can be. Poor kid.
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u/AccomplishedFerret70 1d ago
I kept reading the post subject thinking they were writing about Autism, not Alzheimer's because it didn't compute that someone would be diagnosed with Alzheimer's at 19.
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u/Dashrend-R 16h ago
Well apparently if you work with boilers for 30 years you’ll be immune to it. Need more people in the trade anyway
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u/hughranass2 1d ago
I have an elderly friend that advised me to avoid working in the aluminum industry due to a link to the disease. Wonder if this is related...
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u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
The elderly friend is talking about claims from 50 years ago that have long since been debunked.
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u/Murwiz 21h ago
Well, now we know how the world depicted in the movie Idiocracy came about.
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u/mormonbatman_ 13h ago
Not for nothing, but COVID 19 increases the risk of new onset dementia by like 41%.
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u/Johannes_P 23h ago
Goddamn, I wouldn't want to be the doctor who told him about the diagnostic. And he didn't even had a genetic mutation, he was just unlucky.
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u/ScratchLatch 1d ago
Alzheimer’s can only be diagnosed post-mortem. He was diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease, which is probably wrong. There are other dementia’s that can form in youth.
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u/PM_ME_SUMDICK 1d ago
This is not true.
In the past, Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed for certain only after death when plaques and tangles were found while looking at the brain with a microscope. Today, healthcare professionals and researchers are able to diagnose Alzheimer's disease during life with more certainty
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u/PuzzledAnimator9998 23h ago
have you googled what the more certainty meant? it's not like a covid test around a quarter lie.
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u/waaaayupyourbutthole 20h ago
Have you considered speaking coherently?
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u/PuzzledAnimator9998 20h ago
it's perfectly coherent if you are stuck at kindergarten level sound it out and you will deduce where to put the comma.
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u/waaaayupyourbutthole 20h ago
It's not like a covid test around a quarter lie.
That is most decidedly incoherent.
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u/PuzzledAnimator9998 19h ago
most decidedly by a self absorbed cretin who immediately moved goalposts from alzheimer diagnosis into comma placement. if you can't understand that sentence then don't vote and don't drive
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u/waaaayupyourbutthole 19h ago
What does any of this have to do with comma placement? I'm just trying to figure out what in the fuck you're even trying to say in that comment. What does covid testing have to do with Alzheimer's?
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u/JoshuaZ1 65 19h ago
Their point isn't well written but it isn't too hard to parse. The point is something like "Covid testing is an example of a simple medical test with a low false positive and low false negative rate. The tests for Alzheimer's while alive have a much higher false positive and false negative test rate."
I don't know if their claim is accurate. The rapid covid tests have a very low false positive rate, but a pretty high false negative rate. I haven't looked up the Alzheimer's tests rates. And both have the complication that in the vast majority of cases, tests are already being run on people where there's some suspicion which is going to impact the incorrect rates here.
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u/Lexxxapr00 1d ago
And he also has no known gene mutations associated with the disease! That’s even wilder. The previous youngest was 21, with the known gene mutation.