Link between Aspergers and Alzheimers??

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Jayo
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18 Nov 2012, 10:41 pm

I'm wondering if there's some sort of link between Aspergers and acquiring Alzheimers later in life. I came across an article on a couple of weeks ago promoting this theory, but some naysayers (including myself) just dismiss it as an indirect cause-and-effect, i.e. someone who has Aspergers is more likely to be lonely and have less people around them, esp. later in life as their parents are deceased, which ultimately leads to a breakdown in mental state during the golden years. That happens to folks who get isolated over time, so I've heard, they're at greater risk for developing Alzheimers.

Wikipedia's article on mind-blindness contains a quote from the author M. Brune on Theory of Mind:
" In addition to autism, AS, and schizophrenia, ToM and mind-blindness research has recently been extended to other disorders such as dementia... as well as normal aging.

Interestingly enough, in a posting on WP from months ago, there was the discussion of seniors with AS - and more than one person mentioned how an elderly relative who they'd suspected was on the spectrum their whole life, was suddenly being told by a specialist that they had dementia or Alzheimers. And the younger family member had to convince the doctor that no, this just the way he's always been. I guess Asperger quirks like short-term working memory deficits, naivete, and missing relevant aspects of one's environment can also create the illusion of "senility" in the conventional sense.

Then again, who knows...Alzheimers can strike pretty much anyone as I see it, there's no propensity towards Alzheimers just because of one's lifelong mental disposition. Just look at Ronald Reagan, he was the ultimate extrovert and wasn't anywhere close to the spectrum. And that also refutes the claim of being lonely contributing to the onset of Alzheimers, come to think of it...



auntblabby
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18 Nov 2012, 10:51 pm

marvelous. just marvelous. :hmph:
one more punishing addlement for me to look forward to.



btbnnyr
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18 Nov 2012, 10:55 pm

Getting an icepick lodged in one's brain is another causal factor of ToM deficiencies, but I am not sure if Asperger Syndrome is linked to getting an icepick lodged in one's brain.



eric76
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18 Nov 2012, 11:04 pm

Jayo wrote:
I'm wondering if there's some sort of link between Aspergers and acquiring Alzheimers later in life. I came across an article on a couple of weeks ago promoting this theory, but some naysayers (including myself) just dismiss it as an indirect cause-and-effect, i.e. someone who has Aspergers is more likely to be lonely and have less people around them, esp. later in life as their parents are deceased, which ultimately leads to a breakdown in mental state during the golden years. That happens to folks who get isolated over time, so I've heard, they're at greater risk for developing Alzheimers.


In case you didn't know it, Alzheimer's is characterized by amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. If you don't have those, then it isn't Alzheimer's. For Asperger's to increase your risk for Alzheimer's, then it would somehow have to increase the possibility that you will develop the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. Such a link sounds rather farfetched.

If the article you saw does not address those specific issues, then the article was highly non-scientific and it is highly improper to term the speculation it contains as a "theory".



BuyerBeware
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19 Nov 2012, 12:06 am

I don't know if there's any link or not-- though I find it easy to believe that the neuro-bigots would love to say there is. Another reason to abort/sterilize/warehouse/euthanize.

I have often thought that AS and dementia would make an interesting combination. In the sense of an ancient Chinese curse.

*shudder*

I think I'll have another cigarette now.


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JBO
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19 Nov 2012, 12:17 am

I wouldn't expect that, really... It's true that social interaction helps keep the brain sharp, but for most people the alternative is vegetating in front of the TV. As aspies we are always doing stuff and learning about things we are interested in. I'm probably more "mentally active" than anyone else I know, and keeping your brain active is apparently one of the most important things you can do to help prevent dementia. Social stuff aside, I would kind of expect aspies to be LESS likely to develop alzheimers.



eric76
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19 Nov 2012, 12:43 am

JBO wrote:
I wouldn't expect that, really... It's true that social interaction helps keep the brain sharp, but for most people the alternative is vegetating in front of the TV. As aspies we are always doing stuff and learning about things we are interested in. I'm probably more "mentally active" than anyone else I know, and keeping your brain active is apparently one of the most important things you can do to help prevent dementia. Social stuff aside, I would kind of expect aspies to be LESS likely to develop alzheimers.


Are you suggesting that brain activity keeps the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles from occurring?



JBO
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19 Nov 2012, 1:52 am

eric76 wrote:
Are you suggesting that brain activity keeps the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles from occurring?


I guess I was wrong... Dementia is scary:

Quote:
"Brain activity is not stopping the underlying neurobiology of dementia, but for a while, it seems to be effective in delaying the additional appearance of symptoms,"...

While brain exercises can help the brain continue to function despite the accumulating biological changes underlying dementia and Alzheimer's, at some point, says Wilson, the scales tip — that activity can no longer compensate for the growing volume of deteriorating alterations in the brain. "At that point, the patient is pretty much at the mercy of the pathology,"


http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 22,00.html



eric76
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19 Nov 2012, 2:00 am

JBO wrote:
eric76 wrote:
Are you suggesting that brain activity keeps the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles from occurring?


I guess I was wrong... Dementia is scary:

Quote:
"Brain activity is not stopping the underlying neurobiology of dementia, but for a while, it seems to be effective in delaying the additional appearance of symptoms,"...

While brain exercises can help the brain continue to function despite the accumulating biological changes underlying dementia and Alzheimer's, at some point, says Wilson, the scales tip — that activity can no longer compensate for the growing volume of deteriorating alterations in the brain. "At that point, the patient is pretty much at the mercy of the pathology,"


http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 22,00.html


It seems to me that most people here are assuming that Alzheimer's and Dementia are one and the same. In fact, they are not the same.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of Dementia, but there are other forms of Dementia as well. It is just flat wrong to automatically refer to any Dementia as Alzheimer's.



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19 Nov 2012, 2:15 am

eric76 wrote:
It seems to me that most people here are assuming that Alzheimer's and Dementia are one and the same. In fact, they are not the same.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of Dementia, but there are other forms of Dementia as well. It is just flat wrong to automatically refer to any Dementia as Alzheimer's.


According to the internet, "dementia" is a symptom. Alzheimers is one potential cause of that symptom. There is also Vascular Dementia, etc.



ChrisP
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19 Nov 2012, 4:02 am

Aspies are constantly learning stuff, and I remember hearing a while ago that learning a new language goes a long way to proofing the brain against dementia: something about forcing new neural pathways. The solution is simple!

Bonjour, tout le monde!



eric76
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19 Nov 2012, 4:06 am

JBO wrote:
eric76 wrote:
It seems to me that most people here are assuming that Alzheimer's and Dementia are one and the same. In fact, they are not the same.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of Dementia, but there are other forms of Dementia as well. It is just flat wrong to automatically refer to any Dementia as Alzheimer's.


According to the internet, "dementia" is a symptom. Alzheimers is one potential cause of that symptom. There is also Vascular Dementia, etc.


While there are sites on the Internet that refer to "dementia" as a symptom, I think that in the more strict medical terms, symptom is properly described as a condition.

Let's see what we can find that is more authoritative than most sites:

From the National Institutes of Health, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001748/:

Quote:
Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. It affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior.


Nothing there about it being a symptom. Quite the contrary -- it is clearly a condition as far as the National Institute of Health are concerned.

From Mosby's Medical Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 1994, page 450:

Quote:
dementia ... (skipping over pronunciation) ... a progressive, organic mental disorder characterized by chronic personality disintegration, confusion, disorientation, and impairment of control of memory, judgement, and impulses.


So it is a disorder, not a symptom. While I have the dictionary out, symptom is defined on page 1515:

Quote:
symptom ... (skipping over pronunciation) ... a subjective indication of a disease or a change in condition as perceived by the patient. ... Many symptoms are accompanied by objective signs ... Some symptoms may be objectively confirmed.


My point that Alzheimer's and dementia are not the same things is completely valid. Using "Alzheimer's" as a synonym for "dementia" is as silly as it would be to use "golf" as a synonym for "sport", "Honda" as a synonym for "car", or "Earth" as a synonym for "planet".



eric76
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19 Nov 2012, 4:15 am

ChrisP wrote:
Aspies are constantly learning stuff, and I remember hearing a while ago that learning a new language goes a long way to proofing the brain against dementia: something about forcing new neural pathways. The solution is simple!

Bonjour, tout le monde!


Also, learning to think about the terms correctly is really quite important. I know that I certainly have a lot to learn.



Joe90
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19 Nov 2012, 12:19 pm

I was waiting for this to spring up some day on this forum. :roll:

Why is Asperger's linked to EVERYTHING a human can possible have? Is there anything Asperger's ISN'T linked to? If any of this was true, then Asperger's would be known as an extremely dangerous disease where the person is at risk of getting everything, instead of just being sensibly known as ''1.A developmental disorder related to autism and characterized by higher than average intellectual ability coupled with impaired social skills and restrictive, repetitive patterns of interest and activities'' like what I thought it always was. OK that is a generalized statement but it's still more down to Earth than all these other stupid studies some dumbarses keep randomly coming up with. How come Down's Syndrome doesn't have all of these ''correlations'' to it that magically appear?


Oh and by the way, Alzheimer's is not caused by loneliness. Everybody on the planet have the same risk of getting it after the age of 65 (before 65 in rarer cases). I know a lot about Alzheimer's because I have 2 elderly relatives with it, and neither of them are lonely.


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19 Nov 2012, 1:13 pm

The only genetic thing I know of that's linked to Alzheimer's is Down syndrome... they tend to get it early, which is part of the reason for their shorter lifespan.

I've also heard of people with autism who have the sort of regression that could be referred to as a kind of dementia; but it's specific to autism, and rare even on the spectrum.

Autism and Alzheimer's, though? No proof. Even if they are shown to occur together more often, that wouldn't mean a direct link. It could just be part of the overall tendency for people with one condition to also have others at a higher rate. You can link practically any condition to any other that way.


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21 Nov 2012, 2:15 am

ChrisP wrote:
Aspies are constantly learning stuff, and I remember hearing a while ago that learning a new language goes a long way to proofing the brain against dementia: something about forcing new neural pathways. The solution is simple!

Bonjour, tout le monde!

unfortunately for some [the chronically monolingual who find that even their own language is a bit beyond their command, not to mention a 2nd language], they may just be doomed to dementia in their autumn years. :hmph: