In the new film “Still Alice,” Julianne Moore plays a linguistics professor in the prime of her professional and personal life who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease after she begins forgetting words, misplacing items around the house and getting lost while out jogging.<\/p>\n
The film underscores what is perhaps a little-known fact: almost three-quarters of the almost 750,000 Canadians with Alzheimer’s are women. It’s not that women have a greater risk for the disease than men \u201d\u201d they don’t. But because females tend to live longer on average, a higher proportion end up developing the progressive degenerative brain disorder.<\/p>\n
Still, advancing age isn’t the only factor. The film’s main character, Alice Howland, develops a rare genetic type of Alzheimer’s not long after turning 50. And such cases of early-onset dementia appear to be on the rise.<\/p>\n