Contributed by: Dennis Fortier, President, Medical Care Corporation
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Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is now widely but inconsistently used to describe a broad range of cognitive states. While there may not yet be a universally accepted definition, there is adequate consensus that MCI describes the space on the cognitive continuum between "Normal" and "Demented". Recall from an earlier post (Dementia 101) that a person does not meet the clinical definition of dementia until their impairment is severe enough to interfere with their social or occupational function. From this definition, the need arose to describe the situation when a person is beginning to lose function but the deficits are still subtle and not yet severe enough to meet the criteria for "dementia". To address that need, researchers at the Mayo Clinic constructed the term Mild Cognitive Impairment which has been quickly, if not uniformly, adopted in the scientific community.
As with dementia, Mild Cognitive Impairment is not a diagnosis and not something that must be treated. It is merely a symptom of some underlying medical condition such as depression, Parkinson's Disease, Vitamin B-12 deficiency, early stage Alzheimer's Disease, etc.
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A better understanding and more awareness of Alzheimer's related issues can impact personal health decisions and generate significant impact across a population of aging individuals. Please use the share buttons below to spread this educational message as widely as possible.
What is Normal Memory Loss?
Contributed by: Dennis Fortier, President, Medical Care Corporation
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I see this headline quite frequently and the published answers that follow range from reasonably constructive to dangerously misleading. Here is what I believe to be a helpful perspective.
Most of the time, when a person past the age of 40 suggests that their memory is not as good as it used to be, they are actually saying one of two other things. I will describe each briefly below:
1) For those whose perceived memory loss manifests as "difficulty recalling names" or "inability to find the right word" then they are probably experiencing "slow" memory and not "broken" memory (which would indicate a medical problem). If your tennis serve has gotten slower since you were 25 and you accept that fact without fearing some underlying medical problem, then rest assured that your memory can get slower as well, even if you are completely healthy. The final proof for these people is that, once reminded of the name they could not recall, they instantly confirm it. This establishes that the information was still stored in their memory (not lost), they just hadn't been able to recall it as quickly as they would have liked.
2) For those who complain of losing track of things and not following through on details, the problem is generally one of distraction and/or overload. When you have a job, a spouse, children, bills to pay, elder parents to care for, college tuition to be met, etc., there are many things to think about in a given day. Many more, on average, than you probably had in your twenties. While you once had the luxury of concentrating on far fewer demands, you may now regularly lose track of a few details among the much greater administrative burden of your daily routine.
I contend that these are two very common descriptions of people who claim to have memory loss but actually do not. One group is correctly sensing a slow down in their retrieval speed and the other group is incorrectly attributing lack of focus to a recall deficit. Real memory loss is present when, given adequate time, one cannot store and retrieve information that they have focused on storing and retrieving.
So let's get back to the question (What is Normal Memory Loss?) with which we began. Most of the time, those asking the question don't really have memory loss, they have either slow recall or distractions that prevented them from storing the information in the first place. When neither of those explanations apply and the person truly cannot store and retrieve important information, the memory loss is real and, importantly, this is never normal.
When the memory loss is real, there will be an underlying cause of the problem that an enlightened physician can diagnose and treat. If your physician says it is "just old age" and neither of the two explanations above (slow recall and lack of focus) seem to apply, you should seek a second opinion from another physician.
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A better understanding and more awareness of Alzheimer's related issues can impact personal health decisions and generate significant impact across a population of aging individuals. Please use the share button below to spread this educational message as widely as possible.
________________________________________________
I see this headline quite frequently and the published answers that follow range from reasonably constructive to dangerously misleading. Here is what I believe to be a helpful perspective.
Most of the time, when a person past the age of 40 suggests that their memory is not as good as it used to be, they are actually saying one of two other things. I will describe each briefly below:
1) For those whose perceived memory loss manifests as "difficulty recalling names" or "inability to find the right word" then they are probably experiencing "slow" memory and not "broken" memory (which would indicate a medical problem). If your tennis serve has gotten slower since you were 25 and you accept that fact without fearing some underlying medical problem, then rest assured that your memory can get slower as well, even if you are completely healthy. The final proof for these people is that, once reminded of the name they could not recall, they instantly confirm it. This establishes that the information was still stored in their memory (not lost), they just hadn't been able to recall it as quickly as they would have liked.
2) For those who complain of losing track of things and not following through on details, the problem is generally one of distraction and/or overload. When you have a job, a spouse, children, bills to pay, elder parents to care for, college tuition to be met, etc., there are many things to think about in a given day. Many more, on average, than you probably had in your twenties. While you once had the luxury of concentrating on far fewer demands, you may now regularly lose track of a few details among the much greater administrative burden of your daily routine.
I contend that these are two very common descriptions of people who claim to have memory loss but actually do not. One group is correctly sensing a slow down in their retrieval speed and the other group is incorrectly attributing lack of focus to a recall deficit. Real memory loss is present when, given adequate time, one cannot store and retrieve information that they have focused on storing and retrieving.
So let's get back to the question (What is Normal Memory Loss?) with which we began. Most of the time, those asking the question don't really have memory loss, they have either slow recall or distractions that prevented them from storing the information in the first place. When neither of those explanations apply and the person truly cannot store and retrieve important information, the memory loss is real and, importantly, this is never normal.
When the memory loss is real, there will be an underlying cause of the problem that an enlightened physician can diagnose and treat. If your physician says it is "just old age" and neither of the two explanations above (slow recall and lack of focus) seem to apply, you should seek a second opinion from another physician.
Follow Brain Today on Twitter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A better understanding and more awareness of Alzheimer's related issues can impact personal health decisions and generate significant impact across a population of aging individuals. Please use the share button below to spread this educational message as widely as possible.
AD Treatment Perspective #2
Contributed by: Dennis Fortier, President, Medical Care Corporation
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The fastest path to better treatment for AD is to start diagnosing the disease at an earlier stage and intervening while the brain is still somewhat healthy. On average, we currently diagnose AD about 8-10 years after the onset of symptoms when the pathology is in the end stages and massive brain damage has already occurred. The current drugs may not cure the disease but they can delay progression quite well if patients get access to them as soon as symptoms manifest.
Solution: Patients and Primary Care physicians must engage in proactive dialogue about cognitive health and be vigilant toward investigating suspicion or evidence of memory decline.
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The fastest path to better treatment for AD is to start diagnosing the disease at an earlier stage and intervening while the brain is still somewhat healthy. On average, we currently diagnose AD about 8-10 years after the onset of symptoms when the pathology is in the end stages and massive brain damage has already occurred. The current drugs may not cure the disease but they can delay progression quite well if patients get access to them as soon as symptoms manifest.
Solution: Patients and Primary Care physicians must engage in proactive dialogue about cognitive health and be vigilant toward investigating suspicion or evidence of memory decline.
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