Dear LPG,

Please don’t ask about how often I forget what I have done with my front door key just before I am ready to go out, the times that I answer the phone while busy, promise to phone back in ten minutes, and then completely forget until the next morning.  For years I have done things like watch a Television program and recognise an actor but be unable to name them for ages before the name suddenly comes to me while I am doing something completely unrelated.  As a young mum I would decide to get something from upstairs and I would climb to the top before completely forgetting what I went up there for. 

I have many friends who agree and concur that similar things have happened to them over the years, but as I get a bit older it really worries me.

This has to mean only one of two things.  I have always had dementia or there is a difference between that and absent mindedness. 

Do you have any advice?

G J. Crofton Park

LPG would firstly stress that none of our editorial group are really qualified to make any comments here, apart from personal experience.  But we did a bit of Googling and, from our findings have determined that dementia is a very general term for any kind of memory linked problem.

Our findings indicate that memory loss only officially turns into dementia when it interferes with everyday life.  Please take a look at the information we have found, and we would add that worrying too much every time something happens is not an effective use of time. 

(►►►)   (►►►)     (►►►)    (►►►)