When Alzheimer's Hits at 40: WSJ

By SHIRLEY S. WANG

Early-Onset Sufferers Juggle Children, Job and Dementia

Brian Kammerer, the 45-year-old chief financial officer of a small hedge fund, called his wife one day from a cellphone in the men's room of his Manhattan office building. A colleague had just asked him for something, he whispered, but he had no idea what it was.

"It clicks and it holds papers together," he said.
"A stapler?" Kathy Kammerer asked.
"I think that's what it's called," he replied.
Soon after that exchange in early 2003, the father of three was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, capping nearly five years of uncertainty and fear about his increasing forgetfulness and difficulty with language.

While most people who get Alzheimer's are over 65, Mr. Kammerer is one of about 500,000 Americans living with Alzheimer's or other dementias at an atypically young age. Alzheimer's takes a long time to develop -- usually, it isn't diagnosed until 10 years after the first symptoms appear -- but more Americans are identifying it early, thanks in part to aggressive screening programs pushed in recent years by groups including the Alzheimer's Foundation of America, a national alliance of caregivers.

The disease can be especially torturous when it creeps up on those in their 30s and 40s. As these patients move through Alzheimer's early stages, they are forced to cope with the dread of not knowing what is happening to them, often in the years when they're raising young children and building financial security. As the disease progresses, there are slip-ups to cover, appearances to keep up. When these "early onset" Alzheimer's sufferers are finally diagnosed, they face hard questions -- whom to tell and when, and what these divulgences mean for their jobs and health insurance.

Overall, an estimated 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer's, with as many as 10% diagnosed under the age of 65 -- the definition of early onset, according to the Alzheimer's Association, a national research organization. As the population ages, the number of individuals with Alzheimer's is expected to hit 7.7 million in 2030.

There are no Alzheimer's cures now on the market. Current medications mitigate some symptoms but don't slow or halt the disease's progression. Pharmaceutical companies are working on new therapies that reduce or remove amyloid, a sticky substance in the brain thought to play a role in the disease. There are more medicines in development for Alzheimer's than any other neurologic disease except pain, according to Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry trade group. It will likely be years before a new generation of drugs makes it to market.

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