If you’re a guy and you can’t remember where you place your wallet, don’t worry, you’re just having a bout of anxiety perhaps or maybe getting older – no big deal.
But if you’re a guy and you can’t remember your wife’s birthday, either you have a serious problem with your wife or with your own mind. So, you could either go to a marriage counselor or a doctor, as the case maybe.
A new study showed that men are more likely than women to have problems with memory and other thinking skills, symptoms considered to be an early stage of dementia.
The new study sheds light on the cognitive differences among men and women on the subject of memory for the first time.
Forgetfulness linked with aging, or just a frenzied day, is normal, the researchers said.
But when you start forgetting things you normally remember, and on a routine basis, such as your wife’s birthday or your wife’s face, these maybe signs of so-called mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which can lead to dementia, the experts said.
People with mild cognitive impairment are three to four times more likely than others to develop Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Mayo Clinic. Considered the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s is a neurological disorder that affects your ability to think, speak, reason, remember and move.
The recent findings come from a study of nearly 2,000 residents in the US state of Minnesota who ranged in age from 70 to 89. Dr. Rosebud Roberts of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and her colleagues followed the participants beginning in the fall of 2004, collecting new data every 12 to 15 months.
Overall, 74 percent of the participants had normal mental function; about 16 percent had MCI; and 10 percent had full-on dementia.
Men were one-and-a-half times more likely to have mild cognitive impairment than women. The prevalence in men increased from 12 percent in men ages 70 to 74 up to 40 percent in the oldest age group, ages 85 to 89.
The finding remained the same regardless of a man’s education or marital status.
“These findings are in contrast to studies which have found more women than men, or an equal proportion, have dementia, and suggest there’s a delayed progression to dementia in men,” Roberts said. “Alternately, women may develop dementia at a faster rate than men.”
Memory sometimes plays tricks on our mind. One time you remember such exquisite little details as the shape, color, texture and even the taste of a woman’s lips. And other times, you can’t remember anything of that – even when she’s right there infront of you.
I guess, memory is closely tied to emotions. The more intense the feeling, the more it is hard to forget – even when you’re already a hundred years old, perhaps.