by Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation

Seniors who feel drowsy much of the time, or who have periods when they stare into space or their thinking seems illogical or disorganized, may be at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study reports. The findings were published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“If you have these lapses, they don’t by themselves mean that you have Alzheimer’s,” said James Galvin, M.D., a Washington University neurologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and a senior author of the study. “Such lapses do occur in healthy older adults. But our results suggest that they are something your doctor needs to consider if he or she is evaluating you for problems with thinking and memory.”

”These mental lapses, or cognitive fluctuations, are common in a type of dementia called dementia with Lewy bodies, but researchers previously did not know how frequently they occurred in people with Alzheimer’s disease.