Many of us learn about Alzheimer’s disease the hard way: when it affects someone we love. It may be one of the most feared diseases as we age, but that shouldn’t stop us from seeking to understand it. The more we know, the better able we will be to spot the warning signs and offer care and support to people who need it most.
Unfortunately, some of what we do know comes from dubious sources like conflicting news and portrayals in movies and TV. Beware of these common myths:
It’s just a normal part of aging
People used to believe “going senile” was just part of growing old — but symptoms are caused by a disease process, not the normal age-related changes we all experience. Alzheimer’s is a degenerative brain disease involving physical changes to the brain — the like the development of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles and nerve cells losing contact with each other or dying.
The disease is progressive and irreversible — but it isn’t inevitable as we age. In fact, experts say most people don’t develop it.
Memory loss means Alzheimer’s
We all forget or misplace things from time to time, but occasional forgetfulness doesn’t mean disease. Alzheimer’s involves more frequent forgetting — and not being able to recall those forgotten details later on. Difficulty performing familiar tasks, problems with communication, disorientation, poor judgment and problems with abstract thinking are also hallmarks of the disease. (See the 10 warning signs of Alzheimer’s for more details.)
If you’ve noticed some of these symptoms, don’t panic! Sometimes they stem from a treatable cause like an infection, drug interaction, depression, head injury or another health condition like multiple sclerosis.
It’s also important to remember that Alzheimer’s is just one of 70 causes of dementia (an umbrella term for memory loss due to changes in the brain). Not everyone who has dementia has Alzheimer’s — it can also be part of Parkinson’s disease or the result of a stroke, for example.
Your relatives have it, so you’ll develop it too
Genes do play a role in our chances of developing the disease, but not as big a role as you might think. Only a small number of cases — about 5-7 per cent — are an inherited form of the disease known as Familial Alzheimer’s disease (often referred to as “early onset”). While the disease itself is the same as the more common Sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease or “late onset” form, the difference lies in a set of mutated genes that can be passed from one generation to the next. If one of your parents carries the mutation, you have a 50 per cent chance of inheriting it. If you inherit the genes, experts say you’re likely to develop the disease.
