Ask the Expert Archive Week 20
Forgetfullness
You can't find your car keys. You forgot you had a doctor's appointment today. Are these the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease? Here's Dr. Paul Caldwell with the differences between Alzheimer's and forgetfulness.
We all lose some of our ability to remember as we get older. It's normal and it's quite innocent. But because 250,000 Canadians have Alzheimer's Disease, each of us worries, every time we forget something, whether it's the beginning of this dread disease or not. Well it's fairly easy to tell the difference. First of all the benign forgetfulness of old age as we get older usually involves the only simple, mundane, everyday events in life- insignificant details, whether you left the toaster on, where did you put your keys. But in Alzheimer's Disease the memory loss is much more profound. It involves such things as the names of your grandchildren, so there1s a difference in quality in the memory loss.
Number two, in Alzheimer's Disease you lose the ability to learn, so that you actually cannot form new memory. In benign forgetfulness we can always learn something new, as long as we take the time to focus on it, as long as we note that it is memorable. Number three, Alzheimer's Disease is a dementia. It's the commonest dementia. Dementia is brain failure. So always you'll see other abnormalities of brain function. Alzheimer's Disease patients do not have insight. They cannot calculate properly, they cannot think properly. So, in general if you can remember the last thing that you forgot, you probably don't have Alzheimer's. If you would like to send a question to Ask the Expert you can either email us at rx@tvo.org or fill out our form.
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