Alzheimer’s disease is something that tends to run in families. The older a person is, the bigger the person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Your risk increases if you have a parent or first degree relative who has this disease. A new study finds that another factor that increases your risk is if the parent who had Alzheimer’s was your mother, instead of your father.
Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia. The symptoms can be difficult to recognize at first, and can resemble a typical forgetful moment that everyone can experience from time to time. Early symptoms include short-term memory loss, disorientation, difficulty performing tasks that are familiar ones, and changes in sleep, (to name just a few).
As the disease progresses, the person can have difficulty getting dressed or using the bathroom. They may experience hallucinations or paranoia, and may begin wandering. Late stages of the disease include symptoms such as inability to recognize people (even those whom they were close to), and an inability to communicate, to walk, or to smile. There are some treatments to help ease the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, but there is no known cure.
A new study adds to the evidence that shows that people whose mothers had Alzheimer’s are at a greater risk of developing it themselves. The risk is not as high for people whose father’s had Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers looked at 21 adults who had a parent who had Alzheimer’s disease, but who were still “cognitively intact” themselves. These adults ranged in age from 63 to 83. The researchers used an MRI scanner to scan the brains of this group, and then repeated the scan two years later. These scans were then compared with the scans of 32 adults who were healthy, and who had no family history of Alzheimer’s.
Eleven people in the study had a mother who had Alzheimer’s disease, and twelve people in the study had fathers who had Alzheimer’s. The group who had a mother with Alzheimer’s lost significantly more gray matter in the two years that the study reviewed than did the people who had a father with Alzheimer’s. In fact, the group of people who had a father who had Alzheimer’s had brains that looked very similar to the brains of the group of 32 people who had no family history of Alzheimer’s. Researchers do not know why the disease is more aggressive if inherited from one’s mother instead of one’s father.
Image by Ann Gordon on Flickr