In the past several weeks, I’ve completely blanked on the title of a book I’d just finished reading as well as on the name of an old college friend. I’ve also been known to forget the whereabouts of my house keys on a regular basis.
I’m only in my mid-30s. If I can’t remember this stuff now, what chance do I have in my 60s and beyond?
(Getty Images) - Even if you’re young, don’t fret about forgetting things.
Memory lapses can be aggravating, frustrating and even embarrassing. I also find them slightly nerve-racking, given that I have watched several relatives and family friends struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. But the truth is that occasional memory blips in your 30s — and even 40s and 50s — rarely signal a serious problem, says Susan Lehmann of the Geriatric Psychiatry Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
“It’s typically more about distraction and how much information the human brain can handle at one time,” she says. “All the complexities of life make it easy, in any one day, to forget something.” In other words, if you’re distracted by a screaming child or bills or a nearby television while you’re reading a novel, you’re probably not making memories properly and thus may have difficulty recalling characters, plot twists and other details.
Though I do forget things here and there, I probably haven’t yet begun the process of normal cognitive decline that typically kicks in during the mid-40s, says neurologist Jeffrey Cummings, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. “The most reliable observation about memory in the course of getting older is the slowing of the identification of specific bits of information — like trying to recall a person’s name when you meet them in unexpected circumstances and there’s only three seconds where it’s socially appropriate to say, ‘Hello, Bill,’ and you just can’t get there in time,” he says.
“Older people can concentrate just as long as younger ones without distraction, but it usually takes a bit longer to process and absorb a task, and [they] also have a little bit more difficulty in switching tasks and multi-tasking,” adds Lehmann.
Those of us who do forget a phone number or an appointment here or there aren’t necessarily doomed to more serious cognitive impairment later on. “Though they make people anxious, the normal memory changes that happen as you age through midlife and beyond — which tend to be episodic, occasional and stable — are not a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease or dementia,” says Lehmann. “The difference between normal memory loss with aging and something that’s concerning has to do with frequency and persistence, and how much it starts to interfere with everyday life and your ability to function and work.”
Indeed, Lehmann stresses that cognitive decline isn’t an inevitable part of aging: “There is a lot of variability among people.” A study published last month in the journal Lancet Neurology summarized evidence from hundreds of studies and found that up to half of all Alzheimer’s cases are associated with seven modifiable risk factors, including midlife obesity, depression and cognitive inactivity or low educational attainment.
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