Getting lost, distracted or forgetting for moments are part of the brain processes. The serious thing happens when these events are very frequent and permanent.
We open the refrigerator and we don’t remember why; we remove the house to look for the key of the car that we have in our hand; we participate in a conversation and suddenly lose the thread of what we were saying; we meet someone whose face we recognize, but whose name gets stuck ‘on the tip of our tongue’.
This and similar episodes happen to all of us almost every day. And the most common is to attribute it to the memory loss linked with the passing of the years and that, in many cases, leads to the senile dementia.
But should we really worry about those daily forgetfulness? Are they necessarily a sign of cognitive impairment Or are they part of the natural processes of the brain? Well, a note from the Yahoo portal responds that one or the other option is possible, depending on the circumstances.
The article recalls that after the age of 65 it is very common to suffer from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)a condition in which forgetfulness become more frequent, but are not severe enough to reach a diagnosis of dementia.
But can you tell if it’s just a casual forgetfulness unimportant or if these daily oversights are an indication of brain impairment?
According to neurologists, on many occasions these ‘forgetfulness‘ have nothing to do with the cognitive impairment but with a natural function of the brain that interrupts thought and makes us lose the thread. Many people tend to believe that they have deterioration when these lapses of thought appear, but this is not always the case.
“We all have moments when a movie name or title is right on the tip of our tongue, but those events are different from the kinds of lapses that can be warning signs of dementia”, point out geriatrics experts at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
As is known, our memory is selective. “To forget is a normal function of brainit is something physiological because if we remembered everything it would be a huge problem, ”says Dr. Alberto Villarejo, from the Behavioral Neurology and Dementia group of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN).
The researchers believe that it could be an adaptive function of the brain. This mechanism for stopping action and thought may have evolved long ago as a way to “reset” our cognition and allow it to focus on something new.
In other words, there are various theories and factors that can trigger these oversights. On the one hand, the I forget of what we were about to say may be because “an unexpected event erases what we were thinking.” It can be a noise, such as the telephone, the doorbell, the barking of a dog, or the crying of a child… Also by someone who passes very close to us and startles us.
Faced with this unforeseen event, the brain you stop dead and all your thoughts stop momentarily to assess the seriousness or importance of that distracting event. It’s a natural braking system or what psychologists call the ‘train of thought derailment’.
A phenomenon with a curious name that is due to the fact that “the ideas, throughout a speech, are linked to each other, like the wagons of a train and a distraction can make us lose the thread of our thoughts”, according to published The Mind is Wonderful.
And the one responsible for the derailment of our ideas is the braking system of the brainthe same one that makes us stay paralyzed when something unexpected occurs in daily life that startles us, like, for example, the sound of a car horn when we are going to cross a street.
There is evidence that the same system of brain that participates in the interruption of the movement of our body is the one that also interrupts the thought and makes us lose the thread.
Another cause of these daily oversights has to do with spatial location. «If I am in the living room and I go to the kitchen for some scissors, when I change rooms I have already left the place where the memory was created, so it vanishes. If I don’t remember that I went for the scissors, the best technique is to go back to the salon”, adds Álvaro Bilbao, neuropsychologist and brain health expert.
Therefore, “not remembering where you left your cell phone is not a problem of memorybut you leave it when you were doing another task and you do it unconsciously”, says Dr. Villarejo.
Other factors such as stress also come into play; a very busy day, poor sleep and even some medications, which can cause ‘interference’ in our brain.
warning signs
However, the foregoing does not prevent, on occasion, the I forget stop being a brain optimization mechanism to give clues to a clear cognitive impairment. And it is that when we reach an advanced age, the performance of our memory usually suffers a decline. This phenomenon, as stated, is known as “age-related cognitive impairment” or “mild cognitive disorder (MCI)”. And it is a I forget common in healthy people.
It is normal for people who experience it to complain and show their concern, but it is a natural process, not pathological, that affects the memory (not remembering that we had an appointment or where we left an object) without altering any other cognitive function. So the impact on the life of the individual is minimal.
Things change when in addition to memory failures, communication, orientation, reasoning and behavior problems begin to appear. For example, from time to time, we all forget what day of the week it is, but we remember it right away. On the other hand, if you don’t know what day or what time it is (even if we try to find out) and you can’t remember appointments despite putting them on the calendar or having received numerous notices from family… bad. In these cases we are probably facing a dementia. That is why it is important not to wait and go to the specialist as soon as we detect these small changes, before episodes of aggressiveness, mistrust or inappropriate acts arrive.
It’s normal to put things in the wrong place, realize the mistake, and retrace our steps to get them back. What is not normal is being unable to figure out where those lost belongings might be, putting things in increasingly unusual places, and suspecting, without evidence, that the people who live with you have stolen them.
Another very common situation is getting lost while driving, walking or using public transport to a new place. But driving or walking for a long time without realizing you’re lost or completely forgetting where you are, and not asking for help, could be a sign of dementia. As is becoming disoriented in familiar places or losing the ability to read a map or follow road signs.
Early recognition of MCI is very important, because, in some cases, there is a treatable cause and it will allow preventive measures, therapeutic measures and care planning to be included. Among the preventive and therapeutic measures against cognitive impairmenthighlights the role of nutritional intervention that can help preserve cognitive health in these patients for as long as possible.
Ultimately, most of the time, memory lapses are nothing to worry about. But if the slip-ups get worse and you’re worried about yourself or a loved one, it’s worth talking to your doctor. (DLH)
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