I am not sure about Alzheimer's (the far and away most common form of dementia), but my mom's older sister died from dementia eventually erasing all of her memories including the memory of how to breathe and thus she died about 8 years ago. I don't know of anyone else in either side of my collection of ancestors who had been diagnosed with dementia.

However, the key point to remember is that just because those of us have a higher chance of developing dementia does not mean that we will, because the known numbers (through research) do not even put the percentage of any of us developing any form of dementia above 50%.

Here is a link to published research (published earlier this year): Association of Dementia Risk With Focal Epilepsy and Modifiable Cardiovascular Risk Factors:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/....

Do you have any issues with your heart? If not, then don't worry about the odds listed here. And the overall message from the neurological community is that we do not start focusing on what may happen because that just increases your anxiety and/or stress levels now, which means in the short term you have even more epileptic seizures.

Both of my parents have heart issues, but my mom also has kidneys that are barely keeping above the point when she will need to start dialysis. Her heart and kidney doctors have worked on a plan to try to keep both the heart and kidneys working until the end of her life (she is just about 85 years old -- 13 more years than her father lived and 16 years more than her mother lived. And none of them (including her older sister) had epilepsy. The only other member of my family on either side who was diagnosed as an epileptic was a cousin of my maternal grandmother who had his first seizure as the landing craft he was on was approaching the beeches of Normandy during World War II.

My grandma died of dementia.

@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member
There is no history of Alzheimer’s or CJD in my family.

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