Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease: Symptoms, Causes, and Diagnosis

Alzheimer's disease does not only affect the elderly, but young people may be exposed to it in what is known as early-onset Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for 5 - 10% of Alzheimer's cases, and not only causes memory loss but also affects the performance of daily tasks and decision-making. What are the symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's disease? How can it be prevented?

What is early-onset Alzheimer's?

Alzheimer's disease is a form of dementia, accompanied by memory loss and problems with behavior and thinking, and is early if it affects those younger than 65 years of age, it may even appear in the 30s sometimes. About 5-10% of Alzheimer's cases are early-onset Alzheimer's.

Early-onset Alzheimer's Symptoms

Alzheimer's early symptoms are no different from the late elderly. It affects memory and your ability to perform everyday tasks and its symptoms include:

1. Memory Loss

You may forget many important dates and details of events, and you may find yourself asking others to repeat information more than usual, or perhaps constantly lose items from time to time, or otherwise indicate memory loss.

2. Difficulty solving problems and completing complex tasks

Those with early-onset Alzheimer's disease may have difficulty following instructions or recipes, or completing difficult tasks at work, and may also have trouble developing plans.

3. Difficulty in performing day-to-day tasks

Similarly, one may have difficulty performing familiar day-to-day tasks, which may be difficult for one:

• Go to groceries, a restaurant, or even a workplace.
• Prepare a simple meal.

It shows that a person may be used to using the phone for years and suddenly he can't remember how to make a phone call. That means he probably has memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease.

4. Problems with vision and spatial awareness

Early-onset Alzheimer's disease can sometimes cause vision problems, making it difficult to determine distances between objects, and one may find it difficult to distinguish between contrast and colors, or judge speed or distance, this may also appear in the form of difficulty in understanding the text you have just read.

5. Confusion about place and time

A person's perception of places or times may be confused, and it may be difficult for them to track seasons, months, or times of the day.

It may also be confused when it is in an unfamiliar place, and as Alzheimer's disease progresses, it can feel confused in familiar places as well, or wonder how it gets to this place.

6. Loss of items and difficulty tracking their location

A human being usually loses some personal items from time to time, but they are usually able to locate them again by retrieving their steps, where they moved, guessing where they were expected to lose, and then looking for them in logical places as they remember.

But in the case of Alzheimer's disease, there is no capacity for all that; The affected person is unable to retrieve their steps to find the missing object, especially if placed in an unusual location, which may cause the person to believe that what he has lost was stolen from him while he is unable to recover the steps and reasonably search for them.

7. Difficulty in finding appropriate words for conversation

Also, having conversations or starting them can be difficult. Conversations can stop in the middle of it randomly, as you forget how to finish the sentence or you can't find the right words to end it.

Because of poor memory, speech may be repeated, and you may find it difficult to find the right words to describe specific things during your conversation.

8. Poor judgment

Poor judgment and difficulty in making correct decisions are symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's, and this may be evident in:

• Spend a long time performing unnecessary tasks.
• Put things away in unexpected places, like putting keys in the fridge!
• Making bad financial decisions.

9. Mood or personality changes

Mood changes may be early Alzheimer's signs, which may be in the form of irritability, confusion, anxiety, or even depression, as one may lose interest in things you used to enjoy before.

Early-onset Alzheimer's Causes in Young People

There is no obvious cause of early Alzheimer's occurrence in young people, but in the case of Alzheimer's generally abnormal types of proteins accumulate in the brain, called amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.

These proteins damage neurons in certain parts of the brain, resulting in Alzheimer's symptoms.

Researchers believe that increased inflammation may contribute to this occurrence, and cardiovascular diseases may be other factors that may contribute as well.

Things that may cause Alzheimer's

Some factors may increase the risk of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, such as:

• Genetic factors: If there’s a family history of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, then you may be more susceptible to it.
• Approaching 65: As you get closer to that age, your chances of early Alzheimer's are increasing, but it's more common with 60 compared to 40.
• Other factors: smoking, lack of physical activity, diabetes, hypertension, or depression.

Early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis

Early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis begins with the medical history, and the doctor asks the patient about the diseases he has previously had or the medications he took. Then the physical examination also helps to eliminate other problems that can be treated more easily than Alzheimer's.

The doctor may also conduct a thorough neurological examination, and also verify a person's mental health, but all this may not be sufficient for diagnosis alone, and some tests may be done, such as:

• Complete blood count: measures blood cell levels, and helps to exclude other causes of symptoms, such as infection.
• Complete metabolic panel: Helps to exclude other problems, such as defective levels of certain electrolytes in the body.
• Thyroid-stimulating hormone test: used to exclude thyroid disorders that may be causing the symptoms.
• Vitamin B12 test: determines blood levels, excluding vitamin B12 deficiency from causing the symptoms.
• Biomarkers in blood or cerebrospinal fluid: It may help detect high tau protein within cerebrospinal fluid, which sometimes helps in early-onset Alzheimer's diagnosis.
• Brain imaging: Whether through computerized tomography (CT), or MRI, or others. Brain imaging may be useful in some cases.

The difference between memory loss and Alzheimer's

The difference between memory loss and Alzheimer's lies in the following points:

1. Recent Memory

There are early and deep problems in recent memory in the case of Alzheimer's disease so cues and context do not help restore memory.

For example, if you are asked to remember 3 words; One of them is the word "banana", and you were asked in three minutes about the three words, bananas might be forgotten, even if you were told that one of the words was fruit.

In the case of memory loss, the word is likely to be remembered after a signal or hint, such as fruit or other.

2. Retrieving memories

Memories can be difficult to recover from long-term storage in case of memory loss, making it difficult to access information, such as remembering names, but some things can help to remember, such as cues and context.

3. Attention and concentration

In the case of normal age-related memory loss, you may have a decrease in attention and concentration, but understanding the relationships between objects and vocabulary is not affected, while this may be affected in the case of Alzheimer's disease.

4. Chronological and source memory

If you have Alzheimer's disease, you may not remember the order of things (time memory) or who said something (source memory), and you may have difficulty finding common words during conversations (such as pen, watch or others), but you may not even remember that conversations or some events occurred at all.

Early-onset Alzheimer's disease prevention tips

Scientists have not come up with specific ways to prevent early-onset Alzheimer's disease, but the risk of the disease may be reduced by:

• Avoid smoking.
• Maintain physical activity and exercise.
• Eat fruits and vegetables and reduce the intake of processed foods.
• Treat your diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes or depression.
• Stay socially active and connected with others.
• Doing some activities that increase mind activity, such as solving a puzzle, reading or learning languages.
• Avoid activities that may cause brain injury, such as boxing.