can autistic people have amnesia, dementia and alzheimers?

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I would hypothesize that it's possible, BUT I don't know and I think we should do studies to see how protected various neurotypes are against various degenerative diseases and specific types of brain injury. Maybe we'll learn something interesting.

There is a very strong history of Alzheimers my fathers side, going back a number of generations. If I had to guess the genetic precursor to my own AS would be from the same side of my family.

I always actually wondered if the AS causes a higher rate of Alzheimers, sort of the final burnout from a lifetime of being overworked. I am fully expecting dementia and Alzheimers at a young age.

I wonder what I will be like when I get Dementia?

I sometimes feel like I have beginnings of alzheimers due to my bad memory. I constantly have people telling me I should look into getting my memory looked at by a professional. My father's memory is pretty crappy as well.

I don't like it either. People call me a ret*d all the time. Sometimes shouted out of car windows. I don't at all mind being thought of as intellectually disabled, which a lot of people do think of me. But I have a problem with using a kind of person as an insult like that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... racks.html

While you are busy using it to treat your autism, it may be preventing your dementia too!

I wonder what I would be like if I get Dementia when I'm old? It scares me.

Printed in the Daily Mail, therefore certain to be wrong.

I'm absolutely convinced that many, if not most, cases of "dementia" among senior citizens in nursing homes are REALLY untreated ADD and/or AS... possibly made enormously worse by giving them tranquilizers, and that many of them could potentially have their quality of life *profoundly* improved by Concerta, Dexedrine, Adderall, Desoxyn, or even Strattera.

For some reason, there's a nearly *insurmountable* taboo in America against trying stimulant meds on elderly patients with "dementia", even amidst abundant anecdotal evidence that they work just as well for the elderly as they do for kids and younger adults, and can often work miracles and completely transform the lives of elderly patients who were suffering from ADD long before it ever had a proper name or treatments.

Yes you are partly right, the Daily Mail will often sensationalise and maybe you have a future in bad science reporting, like neurobonkers - http://neurobonkers.com/2011/12/11/dail ... zophrenia/

However, the DM seems to be ok whenever it reports the health benefits of cannabis. It's just the 'dangers' that it gets wrong.

Historically, every medical condition claimed to be treatable with cannabis has, under scientific scrutiny, turned out to be true. Autism will join the list sometime in the next few years.

The real truth about cannabinoids and Alzheimer's? Maybe you can nail it for us: http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=c ... as_sdtp=on

Yes they can.

I'm really terrified of the idea of getting dementia and Alzheimer's in my old age. Life is already confusing and mentally stressful enough without adding those things in the mix plus my life is not something that I would consider happy to remember even bits of if the Alzheimer's were to kick in. I don't wanna relive the bad stuff of the past but I fear that might be the case if when I become a senior.

I work at a rehab/hospice for older persons mostly. The environment, the behavior, and the treatment the patients get make becoming an old person less and less ideal for me.

Isn't Rhett Syndrome referred to as Infantile Dementia?

There's actually been at least one study suggesting that those on the spectrum are, in fact less likely to get Alzheimer's, or if we do get it, it will at least start at an older age.

Here's the article:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/aut ... %E2%80%99s

I don't buy all these stupid articles and studies about Aspies being "less likely" or "more likely" to get dementia.

If you get it you get it, if you don't you don't. Simple as that.

My thoughts exactly.