• News
  • Film and TV
  • Music
  • Tech
  • Features
  • Celebrity
  • Politics
  • Weird
  • Community
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
YouTube
Submit Your Content
19-year-old man becomes youngest person to ever be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease

Home> News

Updated 04:53 17 Feb 2023 GMTPublished 04:54 17 Feb 2023 GMT

19-year-old man becomes youngest person to ever be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease

He had to drop out of his final year of high school after his initial symptoms began to increase.

Rachel Lang

Rachel Lang

A teenager in China has become the youngest patient on the planet to receive a probable Alzheimer's disease diagnosis.

Doctors and dementia researchers jumped at the opportunity to study the case and have published their paper in a recent edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease.

"[The study] proposed to pay attention to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease," doctors from the Capital Medical University in Beijing said, as per a statement released by the South China Morning Post.

"Exploring the mysteries of young people with Alzheimer’s disease may become one of the most challenging scientific questions of the future."

The boy is only 19.
Thegiansepillo/Pexels

Advert

The team behind the study, led under the watchful eyes of doctors at the of Xuanwu Hospital Innovation Center for Neurological Disorders, said the boy has no family history of the disease or any other known causes of memory impairment.

Which makes his case even rarer.

The teen, understood to be from Beijing, has suffered from symptoms indicative of Alzheimer's Disease from the age of 17.

He has experienced memory loss, difficulty concentrating, delayed reactions, and struggles to read.

Advert

Although the teen had relatively normal cerebrospinal fluid, he exhibited a mild case of brain atrophy, which meets the diagnostic criteria for dementia.

By the time he made it to doctors at age 19, he was already struggling to remember recent tasks and incidents, like what he had eaten for dinner the night before.

The teen struggled so much that he was forced to drop out of his last year of high school.

The authors added: "This is the youngest case ever reported to meet the diagnostic criteria for probable [Alzheimer’s disease] without recognised genetic mutations.”

Advert

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that typically starts slow and progressively worsens over time.

It eats away at the nervous system and breaking down communication around the body.

Beta-amyloid protein disrupting nerve cells function in a brain with Alzheimer's Disease.
nobeastsofierce Science / Alamy

It usually presents itself at first as memory loss or brain fog, but eventually the decay within the nervous system can become so intense that whole bodily functions are lost as the nervous system collapses.

Advert

Eventually, this results in death.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and usually takes three to nine years to kill, so things aren't looking great for that 19-year-old lad in China.

However, life expectancy can vary from person to person, as per the New England Journal of Medicine.

So fingers crossed for a miracle for him.

Featured Image Credit: tommaso altamura / Alamy Stock Photo. Image Source / Alamy Stock Photo

Topics: Health, News, World News

Rachel Lang
Rachel Lang

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

12 hours ago
13 hours ago
14 hours ago
15 hours ago
  • 12 hours ago

    Trump reveals sobering number of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers who have died this year after issuing threat to Putin

    The US president has revealed there's a huge death toll already

    News
  • 13 hours ago

    Trump orders nuclear submarines 'to be positioned in appropriate regions' after comments from Russia's ex-president

    Donald Trump is apparently ramping up his threats to Russia

    News
  • 14 hours ago

    New study finds just one of these extremely popular drinks per day may increase type 2 diabetes risk by 38%

    More that 38 million people in America have diabetes

    News
  • 15 hours ago

    Horrifying simulation shows what happened when 'woman woke up at her own funeral' during burial

    Apparently, the woman's family thought she was a ghost

    News
  • Scientists find two FDA-approved drugs that could reverse effects of Alzheimer’s disease
  • Justin Timberlake reveals he’s been diagnosed with Lyme disease in heartbreaking post
  • Single mother, 48, diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer's disease reveals first symptoms she noticed
  • UCLA researchers discover 4 early warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease after TV presenter reveals first symptoms