I have been vindicated! Since the beginning of this nightmare I have been saying that there must be some correlation between ADD and dementia, and now a study has been completed that says adults with ADD are more likely to develop dementia. Why didn't they just ask me? Sid had ADD as a child, which was undiagnosed, because they didn't diagnose such things back then. It definitely continued into adulthood, manifesting itself in unfinished work and house projects, difficulty paying attention and staying focused, inability to organize. The list goes on. We managed to live with it, utilizing various techniques I learned as a special educator.
Then I started noticing that his ADD seemed to get steadily worse. Much more difficulty staying focused, paying attention, completing projects. He started forgetting things he had to do at work, could not learn new tasks. I had never heard of ADD getting progressively worse, so his apparent decline was confusing me. His forgetfulness and inability to focus was so bad that I took him to a neurologist, who diagnosed him with ADD, and put him on Adderrall. Things got worse and worse and worse, ESPECIALLY with the Adderall, and then he became belligerant and unreasonable. Two years later, we finally got the correct diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.
But I always thought that the ADD was linked to the dementia somehow. Our AD neurologist dismissed my questions as nonsense. I could not find anything on the Internet that even mentioned the two conditions in the same article. Then today, I saw the article on the research that linked the two.
Maybe studying what goes on in the brains of those with ADD will lead to better understanding of how dementia develops, and perhaps help the research into new drugs. One thing I know for sure - Adderall may help ADD, but it has horrible effects on dementia.
Anyway, I thought the article was quite interesting. It is under Breaking News on my home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com.
My DH would have been diagnosed with ADD had it been looked at back then. Just like your Sid my DH did the same things. I had wondered just like you about the two. I have been saying I'm not sure when my DH stopped being himself and the AD started.
I have heard this, maybe a couple years or so ago, and it did kind of freak me out because of the strains of ADD that run through both sides of our family. I am of the opinion though, that even ADD/ADHD has various flavors, and that some perhaps are more predictive than others. (this is just me bs-ing, mind. I don't even play a doctor on tv.) Yes, I would say my husband (though never Dx'd with ADD) fits the pattern to a degree. More in his loosy-goosy, start something and finish it in 3 years because, meanwhile you've started 5 other things, approach to life. I have at least 2 kids who are rather like that. Not to mention me. Otoh, I think there's a more focused kind of ADD--the "absent-minded professor" type, like my brother Jim, who so hyper-focuses on the specific things that are of interest to him that everything else is tuned out.
Geesh...I don't want to think about it right now. I'm already pre-occupied by my Mom (75), whose doc wants her to start one of those bone drugs, and she doesn't want to. I wouldn't want to either...so I've got 26 years to maximize all possible naturopathic interventions...
Wow! I've thought this for a long time, because my husband's ADHD slid so seamlessly into his Dementia with Lewy Bodies. I got access to the full journal article at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-1331.2010.03064.x/pdf, though that may be access through my university (if anyone can't get to it and wants a copy my email is in my profile). It cites one previous study that did not find a link between taking stimulants for ADHD and developing Parkinson's disease, but very few of the generation getting diagnosed with these diseases took medication for ADHD. Wouldn't it be interesting if it turned out stimulants were protective?
I do have two kids who inherited their father's ADHD, so it worries me on that basis. I can't fully wrap my mind around what the connections would be. When the Movement Disorder Specialist looked at the results of my husband's neuropsych testing, he said that having a verbal IQ 37 points higher than the performance IQ was a sign of Lewy Body Dementia. Specificially, he said: "It is not normal, it is not even normal Parkinson's..." My son was retested the next year to get a report of his learning difference before entering college. His verbal IQ was similarly way higher than his performance IQ (I need to get those numbers at home).
I spoke to our Parkinson's specialist at Medical University of South Carolina about this yesterday. They are getting ready to start a research project doing brain scans to compare people with Parkinson's and cognitive issues (Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson's disease dementia) and people with ADHD. Their particular interest is in the locus coeruleus, which according to Wikipedia is also significant to Alzheimers disease. They aren't enrolling subjects yet.
My DH has always had mutiple Learning Disabilities, finally Dxd in 1987. They had no clue of them in the 40s-50s when hew was school age. I used to joke that he did everything hyper--hyper sleep, hyper work, hypewr eat. Everything in over drive. There were mental health issues as well which led to his Breakdown in March 1988. Extended exp[osure to one of the meds. for that led to problems which put hi in the hospital for a med adjustment in 2006, which is when the testing was done which identfied his Vascular Dementia. He was starting Stage 5. I know, Vascular Dementia isn't Alz but t sure seems to me there must be connections. I have absolutely no clue when his VaD started manifesting---hidden in the other problems.