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Apathy can be one of the first signs of dementia

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Apathy can be one of the first signs of dementia

PantherMedia

Depression in the elderly

Indifference or lack of interest in the world around them can be a sign that a person will struggle with dementia in the future.

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Dementia is a major public health problem. It currently affects around 50 million people worldwide, and it is estimated that the number of patients continues to rise. In Poland alone, up to 500,000 people may be struggling with dementia.

Doctors distinguish several types of dementia, including Alzheimer's or Huntington's disease. Most of these diseases are currently not curable, but it is possible to stop or at least slow down their progression, so early diagnosis is key.

In the new study, researchers tried to predict dementia before it fully develops in patients. In particular, they focused on frontotemporal dementia (FTD), manifested by apathy, among other symptoms.

Apathy as a warning sign

The research team had a total of 600 patients. Half of them had a defective gene causing FTD. The second study group consisted of relatives of those volunteers who did not have the mutation. The researchers then scanned the brains of the two groups three times over a two-year period, measuring the degree of apathy and various cognitive functions.

The results then showed that people with a predisposition to FTD showed signs of apathy for years before doctors expected them to develop the disease.

- Although participants initially felt fine with the genetic mutation and had no other symptoms, they showed higher levels of apathy than their relatives who did not have the mutation, said one of the study's authors, Rogier Kievit from the University of Cambridge.

The degree of apathy also predicted later cognitive problems.

- ' We also noticed local brain shrinkage in areas that support motivation and initiative years before the expected onset of symptoms,' said study co-author Maura Malpetti from the University of Cambridge. Inertia and cognitive abilities deteriorated faster in older participants.

However, the analyses undertaken by the scientists cannot be treated with great accuracy, as they did not study the general population and only focused on apathy in people at higher risk of developing the disease. Furthermore, no isolated symptom was indicative of dementia.

It should be noted that apathy in people can result from a variety of causes. However, according to the authors, clinicians should consider that , especially in those patients whose family has the disease, apathy may be a warning sign.