“I can’t remember anything these days! I must have early-onset Alzheimer’s….” It is not uncommon to hear clients wonder whether they have early onset Alzheimer’s or dementia because of memory problems.
Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia may occasionally develop in middle adulthood or the early parts of late adulthood. But this is actually quite rare. Memory difficulties can often be accounted for by depression, comorbid anxiety, chronic stress, or other psychological difficulties.
The impact of psychological difficulties on memory is a similar concept to how attentional difficulties can be mistaken for adult ADHD. That is, it is very difficult to pay attention to everyday occurrences when worry, rumination, negative thoughts, hypervigilance, and other processes occupy our focus. But attention is an important component of memory functioning.
Memory generally involves encoding of information, then storage of that information in memory, then later retrieval of information for use. These sorts of attention deficits found in psychological difficulties typically interfere with encoding. Encoding is the first general step in the memory process. Not capturing information in attention makes it less unlikely to be encoded into memory storage for later use.
Alzheimer’s Disease and some other dementias can also negatively impact one’s self-awareness of mental states. So ironically, if clients notice memory difficulties it’s a likely sign they do not currently experience those forms of dementia. Individuals usually do not notice true signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s.
True signs of Alzheimer’s or dementia typically involve family member reports of memory decline, client lapses of time or awareness, and uncharacteristic oppositional or agitated speech and affect. These signs may indicate need for neuropsychological evaluation, neurology referral, or geriatric specialty care.
