A 19-year-old boy has been diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s: the study conducted by a team of Chinese doctors.
The diagnosis is of probable Alzheimer’s and was formulated by a team of Chinese doctors after analyzing the results of the tests to which a doctor was subjected 19 year old boy who complained of difficulties with studying and significant loss of short-term memory.
Diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s for a 19-year-old boy: it is the earliest case ever identified
A 19-year-old boy has received a diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s disease: it is the earliest case identified so far in scientific literature. To confirm the diagnosis, the doctors would have had to carry out a delicate and invasive procedure brain biopsy but, given the age and health risks to which the young man would have been exposed, it was decided not to proceed.
The doctors, therefore, have decided to limit themselves to constantly monitoring the progression of neurodegenerative disease infamous as the most common form of dementia in the world.
The clinical case of the 19-year-old was described by a Chinese research team led by scientists from the National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases in Beijing who collaborated with colleagues from the Key Laboratory of Geriatric Cognitive Disorders of the Key Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Diseases, the Institute for Brain Disorders and other research centers.
The teenager’s nightmare began about two years before his diagnosis, when he was a model student attending high school. One of the first manifestations of the disease concerned precisely the difficulty with study. Subsequently, other problems arose such as the significant short-term memory lossslower reaction times, difficulty reading and other cognitive impairments which forced him to withdraw from school and consult doctors.
The investigations conducted
First, doctors put him through a standardized World Health Organization test to evaluate memory skills known as WHO-UCLA AVLT which highlighted the deterioration. Then, he was subjected to more specific examinations as a positron emission tomography – magnetic resonance with fludeoxyglucosewho identified bilateral hippocampal atrophy and bilateral temporal lobe hypometabolism. Both represent typical clinical signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
To confirm the diagnosis, also i biomarkers related to dementia detected in cerebrospinal fluid and the increased concentration of tau protein. Absent, however, i signs of amyloid beta plaques, one of the most striking features of the disease. According to the case report, such an absence could depend on the young age of the patient. According to professor Jianping Jia and his colleagues, the 19-year-old’s rapid metabolism may have impeded the pathological accumulation mechanism.
The study that led to the diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s in the boy
Prior to the 19-year-old’s case, the youngest patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease had 21 years. The young man had been found to have an early hereditary form of the disease which affects only a small percentage of patients, less than 5%. The 19-year-old’s case, however, has nothing to do with a family history of early/hereditary Alzheimer’s. On the contrary, it is a rare sporadic occurrence and represents a novelty for the pathology that usually affects people over 65.
“The study suggests paying attention to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Exploring the mystery of young people with Alzheimer’s disease could become one of the scientific questions pmore challenging than the future”, explained the authors of the research entitled “A 19-Year-Old Adolescent with Probable Alzheimer’s Disease” in a note published in the Chinese newspaper South China Morning Post.