Two hundred and forty-five thousand - Siobhonn Shannon

Two hundred and forty-five thousand is one of the most important statistics in Australian medicine today. It’s a fairly obscure digit, and you’ll probably have forgotten all about it by the time you go to bed tonight, which is, when you think about it, painfully ironic. Two hundred and forty-five thousand is, in fact, the current number of Australian citizens affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and many of them can’t even remember their own names. The least you can do is remember a number for them.

Finally, decades of intense research have led to the discovery of three genes which increase an individual’s chance of developing dementia in old age. Scientists in France, Britain and Australia have been able to compare the DNA sequences of those both with and without the debilitating brain condition. Alzheimer’s is characterised by the build up of plaque-like lesions in the brain, which impair the functions of important connections within the brain, causing memory loss and occasionally, the ability to from even the simplest thoughts and ideas. According to one scientist working on the project, the study has shown new pathways within the brain which lead to the disease, and therefore, hopefully, new ways to avoid it. The most specific Alzheimer avoidance technique so far is ‘a healthy diet and exercise’, which is really not enough to make those seriously at risk, or even those who are in the early stages of the disease feel confident that they are doing all they can to preserve their mind.

My maternal great-grandmother (who died before I was born) had Alzheimer’s, and from the very little that I’ve been able to understand about a person whom I’ve never met, it is clear to me that the disease has a tremendously poisonous effect on not only those who suffer it, but their loved ones as well. Not only must they suffer the pain of watching someone close to them slip away before their eyes, they must also, in time, come to fear the hereditary characteristics of the illness. If your ancestor had Alzheimer’s, there is an slightly increased chance of you developing it in old age. You won’t necessarily end up with dementia, but an increasing the risk of something always brings it just a little closer to home. You could go outside and get hit by a bus, but at least your descendant’s chances of getting hit by a bus won’t be higher than anyone else’s.

My grandmother, my mother and I all look incredibly alike, and every time we get together, there is always a tiny, unspoken fear that our minds will one day be alike as well, in the worst possible way. So, for us, and the memory of my great-grandmother’s suffering, every scientific development is a brightening of the light at the end of the tunnel.