Essay: After ‘apple,’ I pretty much blanked out

Just say I have “executive function” problems, even though I’ve never been a real executive in 39 years as a journalist.

I didn’t do so well on a short, simple screening test that’s shown promise in detecting mild dementia in older people.

Enlarge this image

STUART HENDRICK / Special

Writer Bill Hendrick (left) takes the memory test developed by Emory University neurologist James J. Lah (right).

PHOTOS

• Brain Teasers. Test your memory
• Exercise your brain
• 7 foods that are good for your brain

MAIN STORY

• Try to remember. Memory test may help diagnose problem

Related health articles:

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

• Topics: Atlanta hospitals | Weight loss | CDC | Cancer | Swine Flu
• Back to Health news

DOCTOR IS IN

Why worry?

THINNER YOU

Lose weight. Together.

And at 61, I guess I fall into that category.

In hindsight, the screening test should have been simple. Emory University public relations officer Jennifer Johnson told me three words to remember, warning me I’d have to recall them in a few minutes.

Then she gave me a predrawn circle, and I was quickly told to place all the numbers on it as if it were a clock, and to put the long hand and short hand in position to read 10 minutes after 11.

I blanked and froze. And then I could remember only one of the three words she’d told me I’d have to recall. Apple came to mind, but not table or penny.

A sign of big trouble?

It could have been. But people who take such screening tests are told to bring along a relative, or someone who knows them very well. In this case, my relative filled out a questionnaire saying I’m still a pretty high-functioning individual. I know how to shop alone, play games of skill, make coffee, keep track of current events, read books, assemble tax records, recall appointments and get where I’m going when I leave the neighborhood.

Had he not said I could do those things, I’d likely be headed back to Emory for more tests to determine whether I’m headed for an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. James J. Lah, the principal Emory investigator of a study that aims to show the efficacy of the short screening tests, explained sympathetically — after seeing my relative’s evaluation — that I’d simply choked.

We all have lots of things swirling around in our minds, and I must have been thinking about what I was going to ask him in the interview that was about to start, not contemplating what he and Johnson were going to ask of me, or even expecting them to ask me anything. He put me on the spot before I could put him on the spot, and it left me bamboozled.

So don’t feel so bad the next time you have to tie a string around your finger, put a rubber band around your wrist or say “hey there” at office parties to the folks you know you know, but whose names just won’t come to mind.

That kind of blanking out is pretty normal, even when we’re in our 20s but especially as we age.

As the researchers say, it’s one thing to lose your car keys. But it’s quite another to find them but not know what they’re for.

Oh, I didn’t tell Lah that I’d used a Global Positioning System to get to his office, even though I’ve been to the Emory campus scores of times.

I think I would have gotten there without it. Almost positive.