![]() ![]() The National Institutes of Health has some valuable advice about when to see your doctor, which you can find here. It’s one thing to forget why you went to the kitchen, but another to walk into your kitchen and not recognize where you are. It’s one thing to forget where you put your keys, but another to forget what a key is used for. It’s one thing to forget the name of someone you just met, but another to forget you went to the social gathering at all. Dementia is forgetfulness on a whole new levelĭementia adds a level of confusion that isn’t present with normal forgetfulness. Senior moments like these happen to us all and don’t mean you have early dementia. Once you get there you see dishes in the sink, start washing them, and suddenly think “Why did I just come to the kitchen?” When you return to your closet you’ll see the shirt again, remember the context that sent you to the kitchen in the first place, and think ‘Oh yeah, that’s why I went there!” ![]() You wonder where the receipt for it is and decide to go look for it in the kitchen. Say you’re in your closet and notice a shirt you bought but intended to return. Senior moments are also caused by a lack of context. And if you’re thinking about lunch instead of paying attention to where you’re leaving your keys, you won’t remember where you left them. So if your mind is wandering when someone you’ve just met says their name, you won’t remember it. Since we can only pay attention to a fraction of what’s going on around us, we only remember a fraction of our experience. To remember something, we have to pay attention to it. Lisa Genova, the esteemed neuroscientist and author, entitled How your memory works-and why forgetting is OK. For a superb discussion on why I strongly recommend a TED Talk by Dr. Everyone experiences little memory lapses like these. I lost my keys twice last week, and yesterday I went into the kitchen for a reason but forgot what it was once I got there. I’ll be at a social gathering and forget the name of a person I just met. It usually goes something like this: “Just one more quick thing doc…I’m worried about my memory. Most are unnecessarily embarrassed by this topic, so it tends to get slipped in at the end of their visit. Yet it does not have to be that way.By Rebecca Moran, MD Are my senior moments normal, or could they be a sign of early dementia?Īt some point in time, just about all of my patients over the age of 45 bring up concerns about their memory. The true fear behind the senior moment is that it is the first step in an inevitable progression toward complete loss of all brain functions. Alzheimer's disease, as tragic as it is when it occurs, is not a normative part of the aging process. This is an important distinction- vascular dementia, which has an entirely different cause than Alzheimer's, is related to treatable and preventable conditions associated with cardiovascular disease. If you look closely at the numbers in the reports of private agencies such as the Alzheimer's Association, it is not only Alzheimer's disease that is becoming more prevalent, but other forms of dementia. This 5.5 million figure, however, is misleading. The media report with great alarm the burgeoning numbers of Alzheimer's victims in the U.S., now estimating the number at over 5.5 million, and growing with frightening alacrity as the baby boomers reach the magic age of 65. Of course, I should not have been surprised to hear about the belief in the senior moment. ![]()
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