Man diagnosed with Alzheimer's at 41 reveals moment he first became concerned before learning his condition
A bloke who is documenting his battle with early onset Alzheimer's online has revealed the moment he first had concerns about his health.
Fraser, 41, has been sharing candid content with social media users about his journey on YouTube since the start of this year.
So far, he's racked up more than 13,000 subscribers on his informative channel, which gives people an idea of what this brain condition looks like in real life.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, this progressive decline in memory, thinking, and other cognitive functions can be difficult to spot in younger people.
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It typically affects people in their 40s and 50s, but as Alzheimer's disease is most common in people over 65, people don't tend to presume this is the cause of their issues.
The Alzheimer's Association says that getting a diagnosis can be a 'long and frustrating process', even when you're displaying all the symptoms, as medics usually attribute these to stress or other factors.
The signs and symptoms in each person can vary, but Fraser wants to inform others about the ones he experienced, in case anyone else is going through something similar.
He's revealed how he picked up on changes in his sleeping pattern, how he realised the red flags weren't just down to stress and what he initially presumed they were.
And in one of his first ever videos he uploaded, Fraser explained how one particular incident made him worried that something a lot more serious was going on.
In the clip shared in January this year, he said his symptoms started up to two and a half years ago.
"It's funny because I don't remember what my symptoms really were initially," the dad said. "All I remember was having some pretty big memory flaws.
"I was sitting down to watch a movie and my partner's gone, 'Yeah, we watched that like a month ago'. I watched the whole movie and the ending was still a complete surprise.
"I had no memory of watching it whatsoever. I didn't watch many movies either at the time, so it was it was a bit concerning."
He said that marked the start of large lapses in his memory, before cognitive issues then crept in.
Fraser explained: "I started having some issues with my cognition more generally and I think that was getting closer to the diagnosis where I noticed that.
"It wasn't until even probably just a few months before the diagnosis I noticed that I was having issues with just thinking - being able to think deeply.
"I found that I had more sort of surface level thinking, more shallow thinking."
Another sign of early onset Alzheimer's that he noticed was forgetting 'what was going on in other people's lives'.
He added: "I've got two teenage daughters and I guess I started dropping the ball a little bit in terms of just knowing what's on their schedule, what's on their plans."
Topics: Health, Mental Health, Australia, YouTube
Olivia Burke