
Rocío Villegas-Piedrahita, at left, and Magaly Villegas-Piedrahita with a portrait of their mother, Aliria, who died in November at age 77 with only mild symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, despite a genetic mutation that should have caused her to become severely ill in her 40s. Credit…Federico Rios for The New York Times
MEDELLÍN, Colombia — Aliria Rosa Piedrahita de Villegas carried a rare genetic mutation that had all but guaranteed she would develop Alzheimer’s disease in her 40s. But only at age 72 did she experience the first symptoms of it. Her dementia was not terribly advanced when she died from cancer on Nov. 10, a month shy of her 78th birthday, in her daughter’s home on a hillside that overlooks the city.
Neurology investigators at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, led by Dr. Francisco Lopera, have followed members of Ms. Piedrahita de Villegas’s vast extended family for more than 30 years, hoping to unlock the secrets of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. In that time they encountered several outliers, people whose disease developed later than expected, in their 50s or even 60s. But none were as medically remarkable as the woman they all knew as doña Aliria. Continue reading