Why senior moments show you haven’t got dementia

Senior moments may be a good thing

HAVING a “senior moment” may actually be a good sign rather than a cause for concern, research suggests.

 

The time to worry is when you begin to stop noticing those memory lapses, scientists say.

A study found that people with dementia tend to lose awareness of memory problems two to three years before the condition develops.

Lead researcher Dr Robert Wilson, from Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago, said: “Our findings suggest that unawareness of one’s memory problems is an inevitable feature of late-life dementia, driven by a build-up of dementia-related changes in the brain.

“Lack of awareness of memory loss is common in dementia, but we haven’t known much about how common it is, when it develops or why some people seem more affected than others.” 

 

His team studied more than 2,000 people with an average age of 76 who were free of dementia at the start of the study. 

For the 239 volunteers diagnosed with dementia, memory awareness began to drop sharply an average of 2.6 years before they developed symptoms.

Dr Wilson said: “Although there were differences in when the unawareness started and how fast it progressed, virtually everyone had a lack of awareness of their memory problems at some point in the disease,” he said. 

The findings appear in the journal Neurology