Dementia is different from normal ageing:<\/strong> We may all have the odd memory lapse as we get older, such as occasionally losing our car keys, but this is not the same as dementia.<\/li>\n
Diagnoses can take a while:<\/strong> The time it takes to get a dementia diagnosis doubles when the patient is under 65.<\/li>\n
It\u2019s genetic:<\/strong> The APOE4 gene variant<\/a> carries a three-fold greater risk of Alzheimer\u2019s disease if you have a copy from just one parent, and an eight-fold greater risk if you have copies from both. One in four of us have one copy, and one in 50 have two.<\/li>\n
There are different types:<\/strong> Author Terry Pratchett had an unusual form of dementia called posterior cortical atrophy, which affects the outer parts of the back of the brain. It may be a sub-category of Alzheimer\u2019s or a separate form altogether.<\/li>\n
It can be caused by certain medications:<\/strong> Occasionally, dementia can be the side effect of a drug that affects neurotransmitters in the brain \u2013 as with certain drugs used to treat insomnia and IBS. Once the medication is stopped, dementia goes away.<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Can you see dementia on a brain scan?<\/h2>\n
Yes and no. While MRI and CT scans are often used to confirm a diagnosis of dementia \u2013 following simpler question-and-answer tests \u2013 some of the changes to the brain that may be seen in dementia are also seen in other situations, such as menopause. So it\u2019s difficult to be absolutely sure. In fact, many people living with dementia haven\u2019t been formally diagnosed, and it\u2019s thought that more than a quarter of cases could actually be misdiagnosed.<\/p>\n
In several high-profile cases, patients have been wrongly diagnosed with, and treated for, Alzheimer\u2019s disease. One example is Alex Preston<\/a>, who was diagnosed in 2014 in Leicester, UK, and continued taking medication for seven years, until he discovered the diagnosis was wrong.<\/p>\n
For a long time, the only way to confirm an Alzheimer\u2019s diagnosis was through an autopsy \u2013 you could only examine someone\u2019s brain after their death. Specialists can now spot signs of the disease through sophisticated brain imaging and sampling of spinal fluid, but these techniques are more often used in research studies than in clinics.<\/p>\n
Blood test can predict the onset of Alzheimer\u2019s disease a decade before symptoms appear<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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What causes dementia?<\/h2>\n
Brain cells (neurons) are damaged and die as part of the normal ageing processes. But for people with dementia, they lose many more neurons than they normally would, and this starts to happen before the symptoms even become apparent.<\/p>\n
In Alzheimer\u2019s, the damage occurs when proteins clump together in abnormal ways, forming hard plaques and tangles between and inside brain cells. The plaques are composed of amyloid beta, which is present in healthy brains too, although we\u2019re not sure exactly what its role is. The tangles are made up of tau proteins, which usually work with structural supports called microtubules to give neurons their distinct shape. But in Alzheimer\u2019s the tau proteins separate from the microtubules and stick to each other to form long threads that block the cells and stop them passing vital nerve signals.<\/p>\n
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