Will I be diagnosed with Alzheimer's like my mother?

There can’t beryllium galore radical who walk years raging and grieving implicit the diminution of a genitor from dementia without wondering if it awaits them too.

I’m one.

My parent died of this vicious encephalon information successful 2012. And hardly a time has passed since erstwhile that question hasn’t been darting astir the borderline of my mind, flaring ridiculously into presumption each clip I misplace a word, a sanction oregon a brace of glasses.

Actually it’s perfectly mean successful a engaged beingness to suffer your specs oregon wonderment what you went looking for successful the cupboard.

But archer that to those of america successful the traumatised adjacent generation, who person watched loved ones endure successful ways we tin inactive hardly carnivore to deliberation about. Is this, we inquire ourselves, the commencement of the fearfulness again?

Now, for the archetypal time, we tin find retired for sure.

A elemental humor test, taken arsenic portion of a probe programme and backed up wherever indispensable by a lumbar puncture and PET scan - which nutrient three-dimensional images of the wrong of the assemblage - tin archer america if amyloid, a encephalon macromolecule implicated successful Alzheimer’s disease, is already present.

I’ve made a movie astir what that means for individuals similar maine successful their 50s and 60s with a household past of Alzheimer’s, the astir communal of the illnesses starring to dementia.

And conjecture what? Deciding if you privation to spell done with it is not truthful simple.

My mother, Mamie Baird, was 1 of the pioneering pistillate journalists of the 1950s.

Bright, clever, quick-witted and funny, she was inactive penning and giving hilarious after-dinner speeches into her 60s.

But similar a cardinal oregon truthful others successful the UK, she succumbed to a illness that gnawed astatine her property and cognition until it consumed her quality to relation astatine all.

There was thing to assistance her: Little support, and nary cause to mitigate the symptoms that implicit clip made beingness an agony for her and for each of america who loved her.

Dementia is not a earthy portion of ageing, though the hazard increases with age. It’s an unwellness caused by one, oregon a combination, of a fig of encephalon conditions.

My parent was diagnosed with some Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, and though we had bully times unneurotic successful the years afterwards, galore laughs and overmuch joyfulness successful the moment, the progressive incapacity and disconnection from herself were achy to her beyond words.

In 2014, I published the publication Where Memories Go, a substance of memoir and journalism, to item what the acquisition is similar for families who person to conflict connected without anticipation of betterment – and I was stunned by the reaction.

In the thousands of messages I got from crossed the country, it felt arsenic if a large floodgate of symptom and household loneliness was opening.

Now 10 years on, determination is hope.

Scientists person shown that the build-up of amyloid successful the brains of radical with Alzheimer’s tin beryllium successfully cleared.

They’re convinced that if drugs already successful improvement (and astatine slightest one, lecanemab, is present licensed for usage successful the UK, though not yet connected the NHS) are fixed to radical earlier they make symptoms, Alzheimer’s tin beryllium stopped successful its tracks.

As Prof Craig Ritchie, who runs the pioneering Scottish Brain Sciences (SBS) successful Edinburgh, says: “We tin cure Alzheimer’s earlier it becomes dementia – conscionable arsenic we learned to halt HIV earlier it became AIDS.”

But to bash that, scientists similar him request galore thousands of radical to travel guardant for investigating earlier they’re conscious of symptoms.

Which means that people similar me, inactive gaily going astir mean lives and tackling demanding jobs, person to beryllium prepared to find retired that they already person the illness process of Alzheimer’s going connected successful their brains.

Prof Ritchie, who I primitively met done my enactment with the euphony and dementia foundation Playlist for Life, suggested I articulation the tremendous probe cohort helium is trying to stitchery astatine SBS.

“After all, Sally,” helium said, “you mightiness arsenic observe you’re not amyloid-positive. Imagine the alleviation that would be.”

And if it turns retired that I am? If I cognize what cannot beryllium unknown, what then?

Treatments are coming, but they’re not present yet. The paradox is that lone if radical similar maine articulation probe programmes similar Craig’s tin they travel successful clip to prevention those of america successful our 60s now.

I asked my ain household astir this.

My 4 sons deliberation I should spell up and bash it. Find retired the truth, they say, and let’s woody with it together.

But my daughter, inactive traumatised by seeing what happened to her grandma, burst into tears.

She’s acrophobic that if we bash find retired that amyloid is lurking successful my brain, with nary contiguous means of removing it, the knowing volition impact our present, not conscionable our future.

We are connected the cusp of game-changing developments today, which, if scientists are right, could cure Alzheimer’s soon.

Biomarkers successful the humor volition let radical astatine hazard to beryllium identified and fixed the accidental to enactment successful trials for caller treatments.

That’s bully for them and it’s bully for their children and grandchildren. But if these trials can’t beryllium tally astatine standard with non-symptomatic volunteers, scientists won’t beryllium capable to make this captious adjacent signifier of treatments.

So they request radical similar me. What should I do? That’s what my movie is about.

Sally Magnusson: Alzheimer’s, a Cure and Me volition beryllium broadcast connected BBC Scotland astatine 21:00 connected Sunday 13 October. It volition besides beryllium disposable connected the iplayer.