19-year-old may be youngest person to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s

A 19-year-old Chinese man was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after suffering sustained memory loss for two years in a row. Research on the case was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and suggested that current data on the disease are not entirely accurate.

If the diagnosis is confirmed, the Chinese patient may be the youngest patient to receive a diagnosis of the condition.

Researchers from Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University in Beijing examined the young man’s condition and ruled out the possibility of further illness, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported. As the study explains, the boy’s symptoms included hippocampus atrophy and memory loss, but no genetic mutations were identified—typically, younger patients with Alzheimer’s often suffer from genetic mutations.

“[O estudo] suggested that attention should be paid to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Uncovering the mysteries of young people with Alzheimer’s disease could become one of the toughest scientific questions of the future. This is the youngest case reported to meet probable diagnostic criteria. [doença de Alzheimer] Without recognized genetic mutations,” the researchers explain in the study.

Alzheimer’s in Youth

By then, the youngest Alzheimer’s patient was 21 when doctors diagnosed him, but he carried a genetic mutation. Normally, all Alzheimer’s patients under the age of 30 carry a pathological genetic mutation, so the case of the 19-year-old Chinese teenager could be crucial for the future of research in the region.

Although the young man was diagnosed when he was 19 years old, he began to show symptoms during his high school years and has since begun to experience short-term memory loss. Ordinary situations in the life of the young man, who began to lose his personal belongings, stopped remembering recent events, could not finish his schoolwork and even forgot what he ate, turned into a real puzzle – this is why the boy had to leave high school.

Researchers conducted various tests to evaluate the young man and suggested that he suffered a significant loss of memory function. Therefore, the study will help learn more about Alzheimer’s in younger people, as the disease is often classified as a condition that only occurs in older people.