In Australia, an octogenarian has the impression of reliving the same day every day, with the same events and the same people. He is said to be suffering from a particular form of Alzheimer’s disease.
It looks like the script of a science fiction movie, yet it is reality. In Australia, an 80-year-old man suffers from a rare neurological disorder that has made him relive the same day over and over for nearly two years…
“Already lived with recollective confabulation” (translated into “déjà vu syndrome” in French) is characterized by “misleading and persistent perceptions” Or “each new event is only the repetition of a past experiencedescribe the Australian and British researchers who studied this case.
A specific form of Alzheimer’s disease
Clear ? “Each day is a repetition of the previous day… Each television session is identical. Wherever I go, the same people are on the side of the road, and the same cars are behind me with the same drivers inside… Nothing is new“explains the octogenarian.
How can this strange (and definitively disabling) syndrome be explained? First, thanks to an MRI examination and a scanner, the scientists discovered that the octogenarian presented with atrophy of his left temporal lobe as well as hypofunction of his frontal lobe.
Second, “analysis of biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in the cerebrospinal fluid [du patient] revealed the probable presence of this disease“. For the researchers, the 80-year-old Australian would therefore suffer from a particular (and extremely rare) form of Alzheimer’s disease, which would notably impact his “recognition memory”, that is to say his ability to recognize people, objects and events Scary!
Source : BMJ Journal