NEED TO KNOW
Fraser, a 41-year-old dad, opened up about his experience with early-onset Alzheimer’s after being diagnosed with the disease in 2024
On a YouTube channel, he tracks the symptoms that he experiences and how the illness is impacting his family
“You feel guilty that you’re doing that to the kids,” he admitted, “even though it’s not your fault”
A father with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease is sharing how his symptoms began manifesting before his diagnosis — and when his family noticed something was wrong.
Fraser, a researcher from Australia, shares an honest look at his journey on his YouTube channel — I (don’t) have dementia. The symptoms, he explained, began nearly two and a half years before his diagnosis in 2024.
“I remember I was having some pretty big memory flaws,” Fraser, 41, said in a video, sharing that one incident came when he sat down to watch a movie with his partner, who told him, “’We watched that, like, a month ago.’ “
He continued, recalling, “Anyway I watched the whole movie and the ending was still a complete surprise — I had no memory of watching it, whatsoever.”
Another time, the dad to teenage girls shared that one daughter told him she was going to the movies with friends and would be out late.
“It came to nighttime and I started freaking out thinking, ‘Where’s my daughter?’ Like, I was genuinely freaking out,” Fraser said.
Obviously, his kids noticed; he explained in another video: “I asked my kids, just sort of casually, and they said, like, ‘Everyone has memory issues that they have, they forget stuff in everyday life … we just noticed that you were just doing them more often, more frequently.’ “
He shared that these days, he writes everything down in a diary as he struggles through “every day scheduling,” explaining that if plans change, he can recall the original plan but not the revision.
Alzheimer’s, the most commonly diagnosed form of dementia, is generally diagnosed in older adults, according to John Hopkins Medicine. Treatment can help slow the progression of the disease, but it’s not known why some people, like Fraser, develop it early.
The ebb and flow of the symptoms, Fraser said in a recent video, can make you “certain you have it and certain you do not have it.”
“It will change your identity,” he admitted, confessing that he can be “selfish” and “not follow through with [his] word.”
Fraser shared that when he’s in later stages, “I can largely be off with the fairies, thinking I’m hanging out with my kid friend in primary school.” He said he’d rather his loved ones “just [go] along with it as opposed to trying to correct me all the time.”
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But the hardest part, he added, is knowing how it’s impacting his children.
“They’re already having to make accommodations,” Fraser said in a video while on a retreat with other people who’ve been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. “Being the parent, who’s the one who’s supposed to be supportive and the one who’s supposed to be there for the kids … that whole issue of that sort of feeling like it’s flipping a little bit.”
“You feel guilty that you’re doing that to the kids,” he said, “even though it’s not your fault.”
Read the original article on People
