Older women who complain about memory problems may be at higher risk for being diagnosed with memory and thinking impairment decades later new research shows.
“These memory complaints may be a very early symptom of a gradual disease process such as Alzheimer’s disease,” said study author Allison Kaup, Ph.D., with the San Francisco VA Medical Center and University of California San Francisco. “Other studies have shown this association; however, our study followed women for longer than most other studies, following these women over nearly 20 years.”
The study was published in the Oct. 28 edition of Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The memory complaints were noticeable to the individual women, but too insignificant to show up on a standardized test, Kaup said.
For the study, researchers asked 1,107 dementia-free women with an average age of 70 the same question over the 18 years of the study: “Do you feel you have more problems with memory than most?”
At the end of the study, women completed tests of thinking abilities to diagnose whether they had memory or thinking impairment. Kaup and her colleagues also weighed other important factors, such as years of education, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and heart disease.
In all, 8 percent of these women complained of memory problems at the start of the study. They were 70 percent more likely to develop a diagnosis of memory or thinking impairment during the study than women who did not have any memory complaints. Researchers said 53 percent of those with complaints developed a diagnosis, compared to 38 percent of those with no memory complaints. Women who had memory complaints 10 years before the end of the study were 90 percent more likely to develop a diagnosis than those with no memory complaints at 10 years prior.
Women who had memory complaints four years before the end of the study were three times more likely to develop a diagnosis than women with no memory complaints four years prior.
“Our findings, though modest, provide further evidence that memory complaints in aging deserve close attention as a possible early warning sign of future thinking and memory problems, even several years in advance,” said Kaup.
If you or someone you love suspects their memory problems could be the sign of something more serious, talk to an expert at St. Elizabeth today.
