He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 19, a Chinese boy destined to be the youngest patient in the world with this form of senile dementia. According to what was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease by the team of Professor Jia Jianping, neurologist at the Friendship Hospital and the National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases in Beijing, it all started when the boy was only 17 years old, with study and concentration problems between the high school desks. He was no longer able to read as before, he had difficulty concentrating and completing tasks, with evident short-term memory deficits. Furthermore, the young man was unable to remember where he stored his personal belongings, if he had already eaten or drunk and isolated himself from family and friends.
“If it were confirmed by further analyzes this would be the youngest patient in the world“, comments prof. Paolo Maria Rossini, Head of the Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation of the IRCCS San Raffaele. “In reality – he adds – cases of ‘juvenile’ onset Alzheimer’s dementia are not a rarity and a novelty, but 19 years is really a record. The first case described in 1906 by the German neurologist from whom the disease took its name was a 49-year-old woman. In the following decades and especially in the last 20 years, the methods for carrying out an early diagnosis have improved a lot (unfortunately not the therapy).” The young Chinese patient underwent a battery of neuropsychological tests which showed an evident memory deficit. Then to an MRI which revealed a loss of volume of the hippocampi (the control units of some types of memory), then a PET-FDG showed a hypometabolism in the temporal lobes of the two cerebral hemispheres, i.e. a marked reduction of energy consumption in centers of the brain very important for memorization and learning”. “Thanks to the improvement of investigation methods and the increased sensitivity and attention of doctors and families – continues the neurologist – there are more and more patients diagnosed before the age of 65, and today they represent between 5 and 10% of all diagnoses.