If someone has become a heavy drinker close to you since they hit their thirty, contact them – a top expert has warned that it can be a sign that they have dementia.
Although dementia is usually associated with the elderly, it can influence people of all ages.
One type in particular, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), is usually diagnosed in men and women between 45 and 65 years old, but there are confirmed cases in people for decades younger.
The first signs of FTD are often related to behavioral changes; People can become rude or violent, struggle with their words or communication, or start to behave on impulsive or risky ways.
But because this behavior is often mistaken for a different state of health, or simply written off as an unpleasant blip in someone’s usually calm and collected attitude, people can become very, very unwell before they get the help they need.
Paul Little, CEO of Vesper Bio, a biotech company that works to improve people’s lives with the Diagnosis FTD, said that a wrong diagnosis can have serious consequences.
In conversation with the FT, he explained: ‘There are patients as young as 29 that is not uncommon, who receive frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
‘It is often a wrong diagnosis such as a bipolar disorder or a form of midlife crisis, because in some cases there is a behavioral component.
Paul Little revealed that dementia is often mistaken for other health problems in younger people
“The patient can start drinking hard, can get into trouble with the police and end up in the wrong form of help.”
He added that there is no remedy for FTD, and that tragically enough never is the person who is diagnosed who suffers – it has enormous consequences that wrinkle outwards, so that the lives and dreams of everyone are destroyed close to them.
Mr Little continued: ‘It is always fatal if you get the disease, it is catastrophic for families, because you will see changes in behavior and language changes that mean that the patient himself cannot work.
“It means that caregivers also have to give jobs, and these are the most fertile, best parts of life to make money and build families.”
Figures released by the Alzheimer’s Society reveal that around 70,800 people live in the United Kingdom with early, or young-started, dementia, which is defined as when symptoms start before the age of 65.
The causes of dementia in younger people are essentially the same as for older patients.
In the case of Alzheimer’s, proteins build up in the brain and form plaques and tangles.
With vascular dementia this is caused by problems with blood supply to the brain and can be the result of heart conditions.
FTD is a rarer form of the condition and meets 16,000 people in the UK.
It leads to a loss of cells at the front and side of the brain, which are the areas that arrange behavior, therefore it can cause changes in the way people deal with others, or take care of themselves.
Although it can progress slowly, the survival time after an FTD diagnosis between only two and 12 years old is.
There have been concerned about an increase in cases of dementia in the young start in the UK.
A study by general practitioner records in England in 2022 revealed an alarming increase of 69 percent since 2014 (of 28,800 cases).
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