ASD and Aging

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Hi, my name is brett and for a long time (decades) I have had parkinsonian symptoms - diagnosed by 2 specialists so this part is locked in. I also suspect I am ASD. I am now in my 70s and my whole life screams ASD. I have a number of children and grandchildren who for the most part have been diagnosed adhd or asd level 1. Some of the offspring are intellectually gifted (computing, math, physics, medicine and arts) and some not so much.

I have for many years tried to find out why I might have been touched by the parkinson's fairy but to no avail. There are too many threads to follow - until I read this journal.

"High Rates of Parkinsonism in adults with autism"
"Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Article Number 29 (2015)"

This has given me the understanding that as ASD folk age then the likelihood of attracting parkinsonism features is 20% or 1 in 5. I may have misunderstood this figure but am reasonably sure the metric relates to ASD level 1 (aspie).

I would like to make contact with anyone else who also resonates with the possibility that they can reasonably be included in this select Aged and Parkinsonism group.

All the best to you all - brett.

Dear Brett , congrats on having gotten as far as you have without a diagnosis . Have read in several. Places of the incidence of Parkinson’s in Aspies also . Am sorry about your Parkys diagnosis . Yet another challenge Aspies may yet face. Do not have a history of Parkinson’s in my family but have some very severe Autistics in my family, non verbal .
Sister . Hope you can connect with someone here sooner or later. Good luck with your Parkinson’s treatments .
Be as well as you can ..God bless .

Very kind. Thank you.

I was diagnosed at 68, I am 70 right now. truly many of us are survivors.

it was still a relief to learn not everything in my past was "all my fault".

Once I was diagnosed it was easy to understand my mother had also been autistic. She had passed away long before my own diagnosis but now it is easy to see she was autistic too.

She did have parkinsonism from about age 54, which is early onset. I have read multiple studies which do link autism and parkinson's.
Even the Parkinson society has posted information about possible links.

I watch constantly and worry every time I drop something, feel a bit shaky, have difficulty swallowing or am awkward moving, even though I have had these things all my life to some degree.

I worry about parkinson's now and also dementia/alzheimer's since that is supposed to run in autistic families as well and there is a very strong history of dementia/alzheimer's in women of my mother's line, with not only my mother but her mother and her mother's grandmother having lost themselves and needing to be cared for 24/7 by age 80. You are not alone. Do you best self care, diet and exercise are supposed to make a lot of difference, as well as not being hooked on drugs, alcohol, etc. Sending best wishes.

Thank you for your response dear autistic elder.

I am impressed with your website and the obvious hard work you have put into such an informative resource. I do not rejoice that I have found someone with similar afflictions to myself but that it seems to be twist of fate that we finish up where we are. Some say our lives are written in our genes at the time of conception and our lives will play out accordingly. Looking back over my life I tend to agree with that assessment.

Of course most of us do the best we can with what has been handed to us, making the best decisions we can with the information put before us. I think if I had known earlier I was of an autistic bent (undiagnosed ASD L1) I would have handled personal matters much differently. My scores in the Cambridge AQ 50 test of the last eight years I have known of it are always at the extreme high end of the score. But of course in the 1950s when I was a child no such mechanisms existed. I have always remembered my mother saying I was a strange little boy when compared with other children and that's about as far as things got. I would add that I have a wonderful wife who before I met her worked in clinical care for the people of the spectrum. I hope this phrase does not offend.

Anyway I will stop for the moment. Perhaps I will share a little more as time goes by. Be as well as you are able!

One of the best things I learned when I was finally diagnosed is that there are forums like this one with maybe hundreds thousands of others "out there" who will understand and relate.. who share information, experience, insights and support. I learned that we are not alone. Glad you are with us.

Welcome! I am probably a youngster on this thread at only 58 yrs old. I was born in the early 60's before there was any official "Autism"/"Aspergers" Diagnosis for me. I always "knew" I was different. When I had my son, he was more severe than I was when younger (he didn't start speaking until age 4) but he's doing wonderful now at age 35. Productive work, happy life and he is able to comfortable manage his ASD at work etc. I was in the military when I was younger (Loved it!) Now that I am 58, dementia is setting in pretty rapidly. I have heard that can happen with ASD folks too. I had adult onset severe epilepsy (Seizure Disorder) and have to take 3 separate medication to help keep my seizures under control. I used to drive quite well, now I am losing many (executive "front brain" thinking) and actually in some areas "reverting" to more of my younger (pre-teen) autism problems?? (I find it harder to keep the "mask up"...Lights and noise bother me a lot more, since I am going deaf in left ear I am often much more "jumpy" and anxious).
Not a lot of help, but I know many of us, as we age have problems...I also have had cancer as well as immunosuppressive disease, etc. So yeah, a lot going on. I would never blame it all on ASD, but I know as I lose more executive brain function, as the dementia sets in, it can be harder. That is just my personal experience.

My father was a doctor, a medical researcher. He died at age 49 of Osteosarcoma. He too was ASD. We seem to sometimes live short lives?
Warmly,
Jackie

Hi Jackie. Wow that's a lot to digest. I thought I had it bad until I read your story. From what you have written there are the usual ASD concerns and of top of this dementia - Just picking a couple of things out from what you wrote).

Would it be ok to ask questions of you. For instance how do you know your dad was ASD? Are you taking regular dementia clinical testing to see how your doing? etc.

Can Wrong Planet messages be private if medical info is of a private nature?

Cheers brett.

PS: Open to medical questions coming back at me.

about messaging. You do have private messaging available once you are logged into the page. Look for the little PM button in the body of the page after you click on the member's name.

Thankyou