Early onset Alzheimer's can often start a lot earlier than many people think.
Most of us may think that the Alzheimer's disease mainly affects older people, mainly in their sixties and seventies when in fact it does affect a lot of younger people as well.
This disease has been known to affect people in their early forties.
Most people who get diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's have developed the disease through their family genes.
This means that there is a family history of Alzheimer's disease.
Which in turn means that the chances are this disease will be passed on to your siblings as well.
Being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease can be devastating for any person to come to terms with.
What is even worse for some people is that they still have a young family to raise themselves.
For some of these people who have been diagnosed with this awful disease, may involve being single parents.
This makes it even harder for them to cope.
They will not only have to come to terms with all this, but in all likelihood they will have to give up work as well, meaning that there will be less money coming into the household.
What you are going to have to do is make sure that you get a lot of help, if possible from family and friends or from an Alzheimer's care giving team.
You will also want to get some advice on any benefits you will be able to receive once you have to stop working.
The signs and symptoms of early onset Alzheimer's are similar to the symptoms of late onset Alzheimer's.
The symptoms include memory loss, confusion, personality changes, misplacing things, problems with language and it will get to the stage where simple tasks will become too difficult for you to do.
As with late onset Alzheimer's disease there is no cure for early onset Alzheimer's.
There is medication to help to slow down the progression of this terrible disease.
These drugs are called cholinesterase inhibitors.
What they do is to break down the acetylcholine in the brain.
This is a substance that occurs naturally in the brain.
A person with Alzheimer's disease has a reduced amount of acetylcholine in the brain, this is why with the loss of this chemical it starts to interfere with your memory function.
You have got to remember that you are not the only one to be diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.
You are going to have to stay positive and concentrate on the things you can do, rather than the things you can't do.
Start to write things down as soon as you think of them.
Make sure you keep up your social life.
Take all the help you can get.
Don't be afraid to ask professional people about your family and your finances.
These people are there to help you.