After the death of Marijke and Janneke’s mother, it turned out that she suffered from a hereditary brain disease. The sisters have a 50 percent chance of also having this disease. It is a form of dementia that manifests itself at a relatively young age and can completely change your personality. Now that they know this, they have to answer a difficult question: do they want to know whether they also carry the disease? It brings them to the specialists at the Amsterdam UMC.
The search for the right choice for the sisters is the subject of the documentary ‘Breinsussen’. Marijke and Janneke are at the age when the disease can manifest itself. Both initially agree: they will start an intensive process together with a possible sad outcome for both of them, one of them or neither of them.
During the process, something unexpected happens, after which one of the sisters wonders whether she still wants to know whether she is genetically affected and can therefore develop dementia at a young age. But can you live with the threat of a gray cloud?
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
In FTD, the abnormalities in the brain may indicate a genetic background to the condition. FTD is a brain disease that usually manifests itself between the ages of 45 and 65. The same gene also carries the hereditary burden for ALS.
Dementia
One in five people develops dementia. Due to the aging population and the increasing number of people living at an advanced age, half a million people in the Netherlands will suffer from a form of dementia by 2040. Many people associate this brain disease with the elderly. This is different at FTD. This brain disease usually manifests itself between the ages of 45 and 65.
