A 41 year-old father has revealed how his slapdash memory turned out to be devastating early-onset dementia.
Fraser, a teacher and researcher from Australia, said the subtle symptoms he experienced began in his late 30s — three decades earlier than the average age that Alzheimer’s strikes.
In a video clip posted to YouTube, that’s so far amassed more than 110,000 views, he detailed two major ‘memory flaws’ that, in hindsight, were indicators something was seriously wrong with his brain.
First, he described a concerning incident that occured at the age of 39, in which he watched an entire movie without realising he’d seen it before.
‘My partner said “we watched that like a month ago”‘, he said in the video.
‘Anyway, I watched the whole movie, and the ending was still a complete surprise. I had no memory of watching it whatsoever, and I didn’t watch many movies either at the time. So it was, it was a bit concerning.’
However, Fraser thought little of it at the time.
It wasn’t until a few months before his diagnosis, in May last year, that he began experiencing ‘some issues’ with his cognition.
Fraser has invented ways to manage his symptoms, such as writing himself notes and asking his daughters to text him to let him know their plans, even if they’ve told him in person.
Fraser struggled to ‘think deeply’, finding that his thoughts were unusually ‘shallow’ and ‘surface level’.
Then, a second major incident sparked alarm bells.
Fraser described a frightening evening spent driving around looking for his teenage daughter, who he mistakenly thought was missing.
In fact, she has gone to the cinema — a plan she’d told him about earlier that day.
‘I remember my daughter had told me numerous times throughout the day that she’d go to the movies that night and it would be sort of quite late with a friend,’ he said.
‘It came to night time and I started freaking out, thinking, where’s my daughter? I was driving to the nearby town trying to see if other friends had heard from her.
‘And and it got to a point where I was about to ring the police, I was that concerned.
‘I’d been trying to call her, trying to phone message, trying to message her, and just not getting through to her at all. So yeah, really freaking out.
‘And then she ends up calling me, saying, like, “hey dad, I’ve just been in the movies. Remember, I told you?”‘
These symptoms can be symptoms of mental illness, but they can also be a sign of dementia — the memory-robbing condition plaguing nearly 1million Brits and 7million Americans
Soon afterwards, Fraser sought medical help for his cognition problems, and was eventually given the life-changing diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, aged 41.
Only between five to 10 per cent of Alzheimer’s cases are diagnosed in those under 65, research shows.
The average time to diagnosis is 4.4 years in younger people, compared to 2.2 years for people aged over 65, according to charity Dementia UK.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, Alzheimer’s disease is not inherited.
However, faulty genes inherited from parents are much more likely to be a contributing factor in those diagnosed with the condition in their 30s and 40s.
According to the Alzheimer’s Society: ‘In the really rare cases of a person developing Alzheimer’s disease in their 30s and 40s, it’s almost always because of a faulty gene.’
Since his diagnosis, Fraser has noticed other symptoms, which can be challenging to manage, he said.
Birds of a Feather actress Pauline Quirke recently announced she has been diagnosed with dementia. The condition was spotted when she was just 61 – and is classed as early onset disease.
‘I muddle up things when it comes to everyday scheduling,’ he said. ‘If someone organised something and then the plans change, I’ll nearly always remember the first plan so I’ll stuff up.
‘A fog just comes over your brain and you just can’t really focus on things very well and you’re in a haze.’
Over the past six months Fraser has ‘forgotten’ how to do things he’s practiced ‘a thousand times’, like turning off the shower and driving his partner’s car.
However, he’s still able to go to work, and does not feel as though the symptoms are controlling him.
But he is increasingly finding himself exhausted at the end of the day.
‘My brain has had enough,’ he said.
