Client Education

Memory Issues

Other Causes of Memory Loss

By: Denise Hamilton, Special to AccentCare

Doctors say that a wide variety of memory-loss symptoms have nothing to do with aging or Alzheimer?. That? why when a patient comes in complaining about missing appointments or forgetting a spouse? birthday, the first thing a physician will do is take a complete case history and subject the patient to a battery of tests.

Poor sleep habits, malnutrition and dehydration—which can lead to metabolic problems such as a sodium imbalance—are major culprits in memory loss among seniors. So are severe infections.

"The staff at a nursing home will notice that a patient is confused, he? staring out into space and not responding to verbal stimulus. They?l call 911, and we?l find at the hospital that the patient has an acute infection, and when that clears up, so does the memory," says Dr. Ali Tabatabai, an internist at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center whose practice consists mainly of elderly patients from nearby Leisure World in Laguna Woods, Calif.

But perhaps the single biggest cause of confusion and memory loss among seniors is drug interaction, which can occur when patients mix medications, including over-the-counter ones.

"Seniors make up only 12 percent of the population, but they consume 40 percent of the medication, and a lot of these meds have differential side effects with each other that aren? tested but can have an effect on cognitive memory. Also, each older person? body metabolizes medication at different levels," says Dr. Skip Rizzo, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California? Andrus School of Gerontology.

Even without mixing, certain prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs can dull memory. Tabatabai says that chronic heavy use of aspirin and anti-inflamatories such as ibuprofen and Advil —which he defines as more than seven pills a day—can affect memory.

Anti-depressants, sedatives such as Valium, anti-seizure drugs and heart drugs such as digoxin are common prescription drugs that can also impair memory, says Tabatabai. Diseases such as diabetes, thyroid imbalance, hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia glycemia, high blood pressure and seizure disorders can also impact memory.

Ditto for heart disease, which is why exercise, which stimulates the cardio-vascular system and improves blood flow to the brain, is so touted as an important component of a healthy lifestyle. Doctors say that eating healthfully, getting enough sleep, good nutrition, quitting smoking and drinking in moderation are also important to a good memory.

If tests rule out physical problems such as drug interaction or a blood imbalance, doctors trained in the physiology of memory loss can do CAT, PET or MRI scans, which take colorful pictures of the brain and can show abnormalities such as tumors, brain shrinkage and dead tissue.

One common cause of memory loss is multi-infarct dementia, in which people suffer tiny multiple strokes over time that they aren? even aware of. When this happens, blood flow to that part of the brain is constricted and the tissue dies, causing mental deterioration.