Chinese patient diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at age 19

A 19-year-old patient has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at a hospital in Beijing, a rare case of this disease mostly found in old people.

Jia Longfei, a physician in the neurology department at the Xuanwu Hospital under the Capital Medical University, said the patient began to develop symptoms associated with memory disorders at age 17, when he experienced difficulties remembering things that happened the day before.

The hospital carried out a variety of examinations on the patient, including a cerebrospinal fluid index test and a PET scan, which are among the world's most authoritative means for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease.

Images produced by the scans showed that the patient had mild hippocampal atrophy and abnormal cerebrospinal fluid indexes. A related paper on the clinical diagnosis of the patient has been published in the academic publication Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Jia said Alzheimer's disease is related to factors such as a patient's physical condition, genetics and lifestyle. In recent years, there has been a tendency for people to develop the disease at a younger age. Some patients with early-onset Alzheimer's disease have been found to have gene mutations. Progress in the capability of medical examination technology to detect the disease, has also enabled the diagnosis of more younger-aged patients.