As you age, it’s common to momentarily forget things like the name of your friend’s youngest nephew or a word you need to finish a story.
While normal, many adults who experience these temporary memory lapses fear that it’s a sign of dementia, with nearly half of older adults reporting that they worry about developing the cognitive condition.
How your brain ages is individual. Some people, known as “Super Agers” reach their 90s and perform as well as 30-somethings on cognitive tests, while some people experience cognitive changes decades before that. But normal age-related changes in memory, attention, perception, language and other cognitive processes start earlier than you likely think.
“On average, on many cognitive tests ... people peak around age 30, and then the rest of us are all on this slow decline in terms of that formal testing since then,” said Dr. Carolyn Fredericks, an assistant professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut.
“It’s very normal to see changes in how we do, not just on formal cognitive testing, but on day-to-day situations in our lives as we get older,” Fredericks added.
There is a clear difference between normal age-related thinking and memory changes and signs of dementia. Here’s what’s actually considered normal aging ― even if it doesn’t seem like it:
1. It takes you longer to learn new things.
There’s a reason it takes older adults longer to learn things like updated computer features or the latest smartphone technology.
According to Dr. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey, an emergency psychiatrist in New York City, it does become a little bit harder to learn new information as you age.
“You’re going to have to repeat it a few more times in order to learn it,” she said.
It may be easy for a younger person to memorize their grandma’s phone number, but it will likely take grandma longer to memorize her grandson’s phone number ― and that’s normal.
2. It can be challenging to find the right word.
“Our thinking as we age is just slower in general,” said Dr. Robert Underwood, a neuropsychologist at the UofL Health — Brain & Spine Institute in Kentucky.
The biggest complaint Underwood hears every day is trouble remembering a specific word or phrase.
“That tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon,” Underwood said.
“It takes us longer to find that word or pull up that information, but it’s still there ... we haven’t lost it completely,” he continued. While it may take a minute to remember the name of your neighbor’s dog or the word you want to use in a sentence, it does eventually come to you.
According to Smalls-Mantey, “if you forget a word ... and then you remember the word five seconds later or a minute later, that’s normal.”
“Or even if you forget someone’s name, but you remember it a few minutes later. All of those things are normal things that occur with aging, and just really your brain is functioning a little bit slower,” Smalls-Mantey said.
“More often than not ... it’s not symptomatic of dementia,” Underwood said. “That’s something that’s very common with age: trouble coming up with the word and pausing when you’re speaking.”
3. It’s common to forget why you walked in a room.
According to Fredericks, it’s perfectly normal to walk into a room and forget what you went there to get.
“And then you leave the room and you remember,” Fredericks said.
Perhaps you walk into your bedroom to get your phone charger but then become distracted by a pile of laundry that needs to be folded.
“Those kinds of things I hear all the time, and those are the kinds of things we would consider very typical and characteristic of healthy aging,” Fredericks said.
4. Misplacing items becomes more frequent.
“It’s common to like misplace your belongings ... this can happen occasionally,” Underwood said.
This isn’t something to worry about (unless misplacing items totally interrupts your day — more on that in a bit). Maybe you forget where you put your glasses, only to find them in your kitchen a few minutes later.
These are normal behaviors, as long as they don’t make it hard to do your daily activities.
5. It becomes harder to multitask.
Multitasking becomes more challenging as you get older, Smalls-Mantey said.
Perhaps you used to cook dinner while writing an email and tidying up your workspace. It may become harder to do all of those things at once. You may find that you burn food on the stove when trying to multitask as you get older, she noted.
Concerning brain changes include issues that interrupt your day-to-day life.
“Everyone is a little different. What’s normal for one person might not be normal for someone else,” Fredericks said.
If you or your loved ones are concerned about changes in cognition, Underwood said, it’s important to share them with a doctor who can run tests and screenings.
“In general, the kinds of things that I’d worry about are: if your family starts telling you ... ’you just asked me that [question] five minutes ago,’” Fredericks said. That repetitive questioning, which is usually pointed out by someone else, is a “big concern,” she noted.
“If you find that you’re having trouble finding your way on a familiar route, like driving home from the grocery store,” that’s another cause for concern, Fredericks said.
If you are beginning to forget things you’ve known for a long time, such as your employer’s name for 20 years, or people you grew up with, that may also be a red flag, Smalls-Mantey said.
Trouble finding words can be a normal part of aging, but it isn’t normal if you start naming things incorrectly, for example, asking someone for a fork but accidentally calling it a napkin, or needing a pen but calling it paper.
“I think that people should be worried when these changes are getting worse in their thinking and memory, when they’re happening more often, when they disrupt day-to-day functioning and they get in the way of doing things they used to be able to do successfully and without any confusion or problems,” Underwood said.
Changes in memory, thinking or language skills become concerning when they impact functional ability.
“Is your day-to-day functioning impaired? Do you require more assistance from other people to do these activities that you could do before? If that’s true, then we are talking about more concerning signs of dementia syndrome,” Underwood said.
Sometimes, cognitive decline isn’t related to dementia at all. It could be due to a new medication, a lack of sleep or mood changes related to the stress of older adulthood.
“We would call that a reversible cause or a treatable cause of memory changes,” said Underwood.
You can lower a large portion of your dementia risk by following healthy lifestyle habits.
“Almost 50% of our dementia risk is reversible or is related to what we call modifiable risk factors,” Fredericks said.
You can do things throughout your life to lower your dementia risk. This includes treating things like high cholesterol, diabetes and hearing loss, exercising, eating a nutritious diet such as the Mediterranean-inspired MIND diet, addressing depression and not smoking.
Getting enough high-quality sleep each night is important, too, Smalls-Mantey added.
Dementia can be genetic, too, which means it’s not all in your control. If you notice any alarming signs of cognitive decline, don’t wait, Underwood said.
“If you’re concerned, get on it sooner rather than later. There are things we can do in terms of treatments and medications now that are beneficial and helpful,” he said.