For Children of Alzheimer’s Victims, Trouble Starts Sooner Than Thought

The bad news, for those of us who have a parent with Alzheimer’s, is that the disease can start to work its dark magic long before its symptoms are apparent. The Boston Globe reports on research conducted at the Boston University School of Medicine that found that people who carried a gene strongly linked to Alzheimer’s performed worse in
memory tests, on average, than other middle-aged people who had the
same gene but did not have a parent diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The
difference in memory between the two groups was equivalent to
approximately 15 years of brain aging. The Globe reports that the BU findings do not suggest that everyone with the gene, known as
APOE-e4, will develop Alzheimer’s, but the gene is believed
to play a role in about 50 percent of Alzheimer’s cases. The study also
did not address whether the people showing early memory impairment were
destined to develop Alzheimer’s.
Read more in the Boston Globe.
Ever wonder what it’s like to have a parent with Alzheimer’s? In this essay, Geezer writes about his mother, for real.