What is fAD?

Professor Martin Rossor gives a brief introduction to familial Alzheimer’s disease and how it is inherited in families.

Familial Alzheimer’s disease is very rare, it is thought to account for less than 1% of people with Alzheimer’s disease. Because dementia is very common, lots of people may have a number of family members with dementia, but that doesn’t mean they have this inherited, familial form. It’s when there are many people in a family who develop Alzheimer’s disease quite young (before 65) that a doctor may consider suggesting a test for the familial Alzheimer’s disease genes. We’ll take a more detailed look at how familial AD is diagnosed, and the different genes involved in familial and non-familial Alzheimer’s disease in Steps 1.7 and 1.9.

Frequently asked questions and answers

At the end of this week we’ll be answering some frequently asked questions about the topic in a bit more detail. If you have any thoughts about the material that has been covered, please post these as comments in the Frequently asked questions and answers step in the last step of the week. You can also ‘like’ other people’s comments.