Age Brightly Blog | Dementia Series, Part 1 of 5 Featuring Dr. Cheryl Johnson, Lead Geriatrician at Age Brightly
We've all done it. Walked into a room and completely forgotten why. Spent an embarrassing few minutes circling a car park. Drew a blank on a name that should be right there on the tip of the tongue.
So when does normal become something to take seriously?
It's one of the questions Dr. Cheryl Johnson, our Lead Geriatrician, gets asked most often — and her answer is more reassuring than most people expect.
As we get older, our brains do change. Processing speed slows a little. Working memory — the information we hold in our heads to complete whatever we're doing right now — becomes slightly less sharp. These are normal, expected shifts.
Here's the important part: you shouldn't notice them in your day-to-day life. Normal brain aging doesn't cause problems. It doesn't stop you functioning.
The key phrase Dr. Johnson uses is functional impact.
If you lose your car in a car park but can problem-solve your way back to it — retrace your steps, think about where you entered, ask someone — that's normal. If you get lost driving and genuinely can't work out how to get home, can't think to use your phone or ask for help, that's different.
Dementia, in any of its forms, is defined by cognitive or memory changes that start to affect your ability to manage everyday life. Dr. Johnson lists some common examples:
"It has to have a functional impact," she says, "for it to become what we call dementia."
There's a staging point between normal aging and dementia that's worth knowing about: mild cognitive impairment (MCI), also called mild cognitive disorder.
MCI means there is some new memory change — it wasn't there before — but it's not yet affecting daily life. You can still problem-solve. You might be a bit more forgetful than you used to be, but you're still coping.
Around 10–15% of people with MCI go on to develop Alzheimer's dementia each year. But not everyone does. And crucially, MCI is exactly the kind of thing that benefits from early attention.
"That's a perfect intervention point," Dr. Johnson says. "If you're going to try and walk things back before it progresses so far that the walk back becomes a lot harder — if not impossible."
One of the most common reasons people put off getting checked is the belief that nothing can be done. But as you'll see throughout this series, that's simply not true — and the earlier a problem is identified, the more options are on the table.
If something feels off with your memory or cognition, or someone close to you has noticed changes, the right move isn't to wait and see. It's to get in front of the right person and find out what's actually going on.
Sometimes it's nothing. Sometimes it's something very treatable. And sometimes it's the beginning of something that needs to be caught early.
Next in the series: Understanding the different types of dementia — from Alzheimer's to Lewy body and beyond.