Early Memory Loss - What It Means for You

There are going to be times that you forget something. Who hasn't gone to the store with a list only to forget to get paper towels, or trash bags? It happens to everybody. It's the reason companies have made tons of money off of things like beeping key chains or pen sized recorders. It really isn't anything to worry about. As you get older, it;s natural that you're going to forget things a lot more than you did when you were younger. Again, this isn't something to beat your doctor's door down over. There is a point where early memory loss goes from being a part of aging to something that you should be concerned about.

Can't find your keys? Welcome to the club, ask any mom of young children and you'll find that they spend most of their time looking for the car keys. That's not an indicator of early memory loss. Having a hard time remembering a close friend or family member's name? That could be a problem. If you do it just once or twice it's not necessarily indicative of anything other than an overfilled mind and not enough time in the day.

When you start putting your wallet in the fridge, you might want to go see your physician. Putting things in inappropriate places, such as the wallet in the fridge, is actually a sign of early memory loss. Again, if you do this once or twice because you happened to have been thinking about the carton of juice, which incidentally happened to be on the counter next to the wallet, you might hesitate at going. However, if it's frequent and you weren't thinking about the juice then you should probably make that appointment.

There are lots of reasons for early memory loss and your doctor is the only one that can give you a definitive answer into the cause. Just because you mix up words or take a while to make dinner because you couldn't follow the recipe doesn't mean you have Alzheimer's disease. There are actually several forms of dementia that can cause you to have trouble remembering what you are doing. Alzheimer's is simply the most common. You could have Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, or vascular dementia. With all of these problems, you have had some damage to your brain cells which is causing a disruption in communication between the cells.
If early memory loss is caught early enough your physician can assist you in retarding the onset of more serious symptoms. You'll never regain the full use of your brain cells and dead brain cells can't be regenerated, but you can keep the forgetfulness from getting worse. You can even retain your independence longer if you seek treatment early enough.