Question: Are you born with dementia or do you gradually get dementia?

Nadine Mirza answered on 7 Nov 2018:

Ah this question- a tricky and smart one! It’s almost both!
Firstly, if a person will have dementia, it usually develops after the age of 60. It can sometimes happen in your 40s and 50 (this is called early onset dementia). It’s very rare in 30s and even rarer in 20s. Children and teens never have it.

Now, scientists have found that some of the causes of dementia, like Alzheimer’s Disease, are genetic- a damaged gene can exist or your parents can pass the gene down to you. That means people can be born with gene for dementia but this doesn’t mean they will definitely get it. It just makes it more likely.
However, not everyone who has dementia has the gene. Sometimes, it just happens, like any disease. You hear of people who never smoked in their life getting lung cancer right? Dementia can happen just like that- out of the blue. And like I said it usually starts in your 60s, and gradually gets worse as you age. Dementia is basically just damage of the brain cells, and a lot of this damage is caused by stuff that happens to the body because of ageing.

So basically, you aren’t born with dementia, but you could be born with the gene. Either way, you would only gradually get dementia once you’re much older.

Hope that helps!