Health security

Baby Boomers, Relax. It Probably Isn’t Dementia

Memory loss, a possible symptom of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease, is usually associated with old age. But as a geriatric psychiatrist and head of a memory center, I am seeing more patients age 50 to 65 who complain of increasing memory lapses and other cognitive issues.

These people are in the prime of their lives, and the very thought of having dementia is causing them to panic. They are particularly fearful of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, knowing it is incurable and difficult to detect early on.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath.

While possible signs of cognitive decline or dementia certainly warrant careful assessment, in patients of this age, such symptoms are more likely the result of a relatively benign and eminently more treatable 21st-century ailment that one might simply refer to as brain fog.