Everybody suffers from the occasional brain fart. But while something like losing your keys is harmless, there are some mental slip-ups that could indicate something more serious. A recent Men’s Health article has some guidelines on how to tell:
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1. You blank when you dial your girlfriend’s number.
This is normal. Because these days you store numbers right on your phone, you never form the well-worn connections that commit these random number sequences to memory, says neurologist Vernon Williams, M.D., director of the Kerlan-Jobe Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine.
So when your phone dies, dialing your girl’s digits is a bigger mental chore than, say, ringing your childhood home.
2. You get lost on your normal commute.
If you’re generally directionally-challenged, this is no big deal. But if you suddenly forget familiar routes, it could signal a drop-off in your spatial memory, says Dr. Williams. And that could be serious: Declines in spatial memory often occur early in people with Alzheimer’s disease. That’s because the condition quickly damages the hippocampus, a brain area involved in orientation.
3. You’re late for work and can’t find your keys
This is normal, and not really a memory problem, but more about how well you pay attention. “When people are stressed and they’ve got 17 different things going on at once and five balls in the air, they may not actually record that memory into an area from which they can retrieve it later,” Dr. Williams says.
4. You can’t remember driving home
This is normal and just shows a lack of focus. When something becomes part of your routine—like taking the same way home from work for years—you perform it without much conscious thought, so it’s not super memorable, says memory expert Gary Small, M.D., author of 2 Weeks to a Younger Brain.
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If you don’t concentrate enough to create a strong memory, you only have a blank space where that memory would’ve been stored.
Obviously, the real danger here has less to do with dementia and more to do with driving, since a wandering mind can slow your reaction to threats on the road, says Dr. Small.
5. You have no idea where you parked.
If this only happens occasionally, there’s no reason to be alarmed. But if you can’t find your car more than once or twice a month, that could signal the types of spatial memory issues linked to Alzheimer’s, says Dr. Williams—especially if it’s a new-to-you problem. Sudden memory changes always raise more red flags than those that develop gradually.
6. You can’t quite find the right word.
Everyone experiences what Dr. Small calls “tip-of-the-tongue” moments—times when you know you know something, but can’t spit it out. If you haven’t called up a fact in a while, the winding pathway between that detail and your conscious mind fades a bit from lack of use.
Stress scrambles the messages even more, says Dr. Small. That’s why these details often pop back into your head later, when the pressure’s off.
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But if you frequently forget the names of common objects, talk to your doctor. That sounds more like anomia, a disruption of verbal memory that serves as an early warning sign of Alzheimer’s.
Curated Article and Photo Credit from Men’s Health
