Commentary: Misplaced glasses, forgotten names. How to know when to worry, and how to thrive

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Set us as preferred Dr.Zaldy Tan, author of a new book with profound insights into aging, memory loss and resilience, was examining an 84-year-old patient with vascular dementia last week in a suite at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.The patient’s daughter and primary caregiver, Adai Lamar, updated Tan on her mother Jessie’s condition, and then stepped away to tell me about her own journey.

There came a point earlier this year, Lamar said, when she did the same thing I did when my parents’ memories were fading.She began to wonder if she, too, was at risk of cognitive impairment.“You get very scared [about] any of the smallest things,” Lamar told me.Like forgetting a word, which Lamar can’t afford to do as a morning radio show host on KJLH-FM (102.3).“I had read that symptoms start happening anywhere from 20 to 30 years before you get your diagnosis,” said Lamar, who thought, “Yeah, let me jump in and get ahead of it.”That’s when she met Tan, director of the Cedars-Sinai Memory & Healthy Aging Program, which helps identify people who might be at risk of memory loss and advises them on how to slow or prevent development of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.As I’ve written previously, quoting Tan and other experts, there is no cure for dementia.But there are prescription drugs that can delay the advance in the early stages, or treat symptoms in later stages.

And there’s now plenty of evidence on how to reduce risk by controlling diabetes and hypertension, and by getting plenty of sleep and exercise and maintaining a healthy diet.“When I came to see Dr.Tan, I was 25 pounds heavier,” Lamar said.

“I was not getting any sleep because of my mom.I was just trying to do it all.

And ...he was able to put my mind and heart at ease that there was something I could do to make sure I didn’t go d...