For the past five years, you've driven home from work the same way. You can't remember if you need to turn left or right when you stop at the same intersection.
It can be difficult to know if a momentary forgetting is normal, a sign of cognitive decline, or even the start of dementia.
It's possible that it's due to the decline in our brains. Our brain cells shrink as we get older. Less of the chemicals needed for sending messages to other neurons are stored by them.
Some memory problems are not related to age. Being tired, anxious, or distracted are some of the influencing factors.
A lot of forgetting is normal in our memory system. The feature is not a flaw. Too much information can slow down or hamper the retrieving of specific memories, which is why it's important to maintain memories.
It isn't always up to us to decide what should be remembered. The brain does that. Social information is preferred by our brain but it is easy to discard abstract information.
When memory loss starts to affect your daily life, it becomes a problem. If you can't remember, it's not a big deal.
It's not normal to forget how to drive or why you're behind the wheel. There are signs that something isn't right.
Mild cognitive impairment is the road between aging-associated memory loss and the more serious memory loss. The degree of impairment can go either way.
It shows an increased risk of future dementia. Around 10% of people with mild cognitive impairment will develop dementia.
Mild cognitive impairment can affect the ability to undertake usual activities over time. It can be accompanied by problems with language, thinking and decision making.
A mild cognitive impairment diagnosis can be either positive or negative. Older people worry that their memory loss is abnormal. Concerns have been raised that it will become dementia. Potential treatment and planning for the future can be explored.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia and impairment in navigation is thought to be an early sign. The areas that underpin memories for our spatial environment are the first to be affected by Alzheimer's.
There is a chance that a noticeable increase in occasions of getting lost is a warning sign.
As a result of the link between decline in the ability to find your way and dementia, there is an incentive to develop and use standardized tests to detect deficits early on.
There is no gold standard yet for various approaches, ranging from pen-and-paper tests to real-life navigation.
There is a challenge to develop a test that is easy to administer and cost-effective.
A five-minute test has been developed that uses scene memory as a proxy for way- finding ability. Participants are asked to remember pictures of houses and then test their ability to distinguish between new and old pictures of houses.
The test works well in predicting natural variations in way- finding ability in healthy young people, but is still being evaluated in older people.
It is a good idea to seek professional health care advice when your impairments become more marked and consistent.
There is no cure for Alzheimer's, but early detection will allow you to plan for the future and for more targeted management of the disease.
Cindy Jones is an associate professor of behavioral sciences at Bond University.
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