Alzheimer’s disease has taken on such mythical proportions that many people seem to think it is interchangeable with dementia. It’s not. Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia, just as leukaemia is a form of cancer. It’s just that, of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease is arguably the most well-known form, leading to the misconception that any and all dementia is automatically Alzheimer’s. Think of it a bit like this: all elephants are grey, but not all grey things are elephants.
So what makes Alzheimer’s disease “special” in the world of dementia? Symptoms of dementia usually don’t occur before the age of 65, so it makes sense for dementia to be characterized as an “elderly disease”. Alzheimer’s follows this pattern – most people don’t start having weird memory problems until they’re in their 70s – but if what those people have is indeed Alzheimer’s, it actually began about 30 years before they ever started exhibiting symptoms. Think about it: if people in their 60s, right around retirement age, are eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, that means they actually started down this degenerative road in their early 30s. No wonder the genetic risk for Alzheimer’s is a big deal: people’s brains are actively changing for the worse, and they’re having children right around the same time. It’s much different than someone who, long after babymaking years, hit his or her head in a car accident and started forgetting things more often.
