When someone says "Can I pick your brain for a minute," does it bother you that that may be as long as it takes? Losing one's memory is a common subject of humor as we age. I'm just now realizing, however, that it's more serious and scary than we may like to admit (or, if I realized it earlier, I forgot about it). My dad, at 85 and one of the sharpest minds I know, has said in moments of not-totally-tongue-in-cheek, "If I ever lose my mind, shoot me." I like to obey my parents, but fortunately I can't remember where the gun is. Senility, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, "forgetfulness"- unfortunately, by whatever name you give it, memory loss is no joke if you or a loved one is really worried about it and you're convinced it's more than just misplacing the keys. The conventional medical profession, great for treating acute problems, has a poor track record, in my opinion, for chronic situations. The progressive loss of memory certainly qualifies as one of the latter, because there's tons you can do, and a lot of both history and research to back it up. Lange's Current Diagnosis & Treatment (1997) defines dementia as "an acquired persistent and progressive impairment of intellectual function with compromise in at least two of the following spheres of mental activity: language, memory, visuospatial skills, emotional behavior or personality, and cognition (calculation, abstraction, judgment, etc.)" (Gee, since I have no idea what a visuospatial skill is and my athletes tell me I have a deadbeat personality, I may be in trouble.) Anyway, forgetfulness usually comes first, and the fact that you are a bit forgetful doesn't necessarily mean you have Alzheimer's, as progression to true dementia is not an absolute. Also bear in mind that though full-blown dementia in the elderly is often of the Alzheimer type (60-70 percent), there are other causes of forgetfulness and confusion, problems that conventional medicine can be very helpful with. Vas...
