Mum gets Alzheimer’s aged just 36 after inheriting ultra-rare disease that killed her dad and grandad
Carla Brammall tried to shrug off worrying symptoms of the disease until she crashed her car with her daughter inside
A MUM needs 24 hours care after becoming an Alzheimer’s sufferer at just 36.
Carla Brammall has an ultra-rare genetic form that killed her dad and grandad.
She first showed symptoms when she was just 30.
Carla tried to shrug them off, until she crashed her car with her daughter inside.
Her mother Rita took her to the same London hospital that treated her father.
Experts there confirmed the family’s worst fears.
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That was three years ago and since then her condition has rapidly deteriorated.
She is now 39 and wheelchair-bound in a home, unable to even lift her head.
Shattered Rita, 61, said yesterday: “She can’t walk or speak and needs to be fed with soft food.
“She has regular seizures.
“She’s gone downhill a lot quicker than her dad.
“Watching my own child go through this is indescribably painful.
“It breaks my heart.”
The toll on Carla’s son, now 18, and 12-year-old daughter, who have had to move in with their gran, has also been unbearable.
Rita said in Rushden, Northants: “The kids rarely see Carla now because she is so different to how she used to be.
“The last time I took them to see her they were left in floods of tears.”
Carla, who was a court worker until no longer able to hold down a job, had known since childhood she had a 50/50 chance of inheriting a faulty gene that has plagued her family.
She was 15 when her dad Barry, died of Alzheimer’s aged 43.
The mutation is so rare just 450 families in the world are affected.
An uncle of Carla’s has also died from it.
A cousin with Alzheimer’s is in a care home.
But her mechanic brother Lee has so far shown no signs of the disease.
Lee, 37, a father of one, said: “I was nine when I was told of the 50/50 risk.
“Carla didn’t like to talk about it and said if she found out she had it she wouldn’t want to live.
“It became like a sentence for me but it’s even worse knowing she is the one who has it.
“When she first began showing signs friends would try to reassure me by saying, ‘No, it’s just Carla being ditzy’.
“But for me it was a gut-wrenching feeling knowing these were real symptoms and it was happening to Carla.”
Rita said: “I thought by now there would be new treatments out there.
“But there just isn’t anything available.”