Healthy Aging: Senior Moments and Alzheimer’s

Memory Loss or Senior Moments is nothing to joke about!

We joke about senior moments and failing memory as we age. Society is accepting of senior moments as just one more part of the aging process and people may think little about being forgetful but science has another opinion.

“The very early mild cognitive changes once thought to be normal aging are really the first signs of progressive dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s disease.”    Robert S.Wilson, PhD, neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center.

The latest research on Alzheimer’s demonstrates that memory loss is not a normal part of the aging process. It is just an early sign of the brain damage that eventually causes Alzheimer’s There is no difference in the brain leisons associated with Alzheimer’s than those found in the brains of people with mild memory loss. The tangling of full-blown Alzeimer’s patients is just more intense. This conclusion is from a study of 350 members of religious orders who were tested for memory function over 13 years with examination of their brains after death.

Subjects with no memory problems had no lesions or tangling. Subjects with memory imparment all had some degree of lesions and tangling. Although there is not yet any recognized treatment for Alzheimer’s , early recognition of a problem can alert people to maintain a good health regimine and seek medical advise,