Dementia and arthritis can also strike the young but a healthy lifestyle and medication can provide relief

Dementia and arthritis are most often thought of as “old people’s diseases”.

But they can afflict younger people too.

Arthritis or joint inflammation can hit patients as young as their teens, while people can display symptoms of dementia as early as age 50.

Dr Lim Lian Arn, an orthopaedic surgeon with Raffles Hospital, has treated a small number of patients in their teens and early 20s who needed joint replacements because of arthritis.

Symptoms include joint pains and sometimes swelling, stiffness or even deformity in the joints.

According to Dr Lim, arthritis in the young is related to inflammatory causes such as gout and rheumatoid arthritis. It can also be due to trauma such as injury that causes abnormal wear and tear in the joints.

The majority of such cases can be treated with medication and regular but moderate exercise.

Dr Lim advises: “A general approach would be to have a moderate level of activities and due vigilance when symptoms such as joint pain or swelling occur.”

This means regular exercise, which keeps muscles in tone, and bones and joints in balance.

It is hard to prevent inflammatory arthritis, except when it is clearly related to factors such as diet, as in the case of gout.

Dr Lim advises patients to keep an eye out for the “niggling symptoms” of joint pain and to address them early.

But while there is a degree of control for arthritis patients, dementia is a trickier illness.

Dementia is an umbrella term for a progressive and degenerative disease of the brain which affects memory and language, among other intellectual abilities, severely enough to interfere with daily occupational and social functioning.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, while other strains include Huntington’s disease and vascular dementia.

Doctors tell LifeStyle that there is no cure for dementia. Medication can only slow down the progress of the disease and address the behavioural and psychological symptoms.

Associate Professor Tan Eng King of the Singapore General Hospital notes that dementia is “uncommon before the age of 40”.

The youngest patients treated at the Insitute of Mental Health are in their early to mid-50s. But doctors at SGH have treated a 39-year-old patient who developed dementia as the result of a stroke.

Dr Tan Lay Ling of the Institute of Mental Health adds that younger patients may have a harder time coping, as they can be “more violent and aggressive”.

Financial issues may also be involved, as they may still have a family to look after, and will themselves require a longer period of care.

There are many causes of dementia in younger patients – a family history of genetic disorders, severe head trauma and stroke.

Dr Tan says the first sign to look out for is memory deterioration, which usually begins with difficulty in recalling recent events. Other symptoms include aggression and hallucinations.

The only safeguard against dementia appears to be a healthy and active lifestyle.

Head of general medicine and geriatrician at the National University Hospital Dr Reshma Merchant notes that mental exercises and learning in the form of puzzles and playing mahjong may delay the onset of dementia.

Certain foods may also help. Dr Merchant cites a seven-year study examining dietary factors, which revealed that people who ate fish once a week had a 60 per cent reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s
disease than people who rarely ate fish.