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[quote=Anonymous]My grandmother ran into my sister in a grocery store sort of unexpectedly and didn’t recognize her -/ because she wasn’t expecting her there.

But I want to caution that a lot of these things can be caused by other things as well, including underlying conditions that were never diagnosed because they just didn’t do that years ago.  For instance, my father failed the in office screening test for Alzheimer’s because he has raging undiagnosed ADHD and those tests are heavy on working memory.  They had no baseline for working memory for him but I knew it was terrible — his whole life he wrote down notes or relied on my mom.  It’s 15 years later and he still is fine  with no Alzheimer’s.    My mom, for her part, has some of the behavioral changes.  But she has undiagnosed anxiety disorder — as she ages and her old routines become impossible, she gets really upset (the same way a kid with anxiety gets so upset when forced to do things outside their comfort level).  She just has troubling adapting to new realities.

I’d also really really encourage folks to find out more about how they are sleeping.  The one time I was really worried about my dad’s cognition was years ago, when he just stopped people able to think through even simple things.  It turns out that a new medication was causing awful insomnia which he finally admitted when I was like “what the heck is wrong with you?  You’re not making any sense??”  A lot of older people have trouble sleeping and your brain and especially memory will not work without sleep.

Cardiac output problems (clogged arteries leading to the brain) can also cause cognitive impairment and is really easily fixed by cleaning out and stentjng those arteries.

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