Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of everyday memory lapses in older adults

ABSTRACT

Everyday memory lapses experienced by older adults (OAs) were examined using a daily-diary checklist and retrospective questionnaire. In Experiment 1, 138 younger and 138 OAs indicated the frequency of forgetting of 16 memory lapses, and whether each occurred daily during the course of a week. OAs reported more memory lapses on the questionnaire, but not the daily diary. OAs reported more frequently forgetting names and words, while younger adults had more difficulty with appointments and personal dates. Fewer memory lapses on the daily diary were related to better performance on a laboratory-memory measure for OAs. In Experiment 2, 62 OAs returned for a five-year follow-up and endorsed experiencing more memory lapses on the daily diary compared to baseline, specifically forgetting more names and words, but not the retrospective questionnaire. Daily checklist memory lapses again correlated with the laboratory-memory measure. A daily checklist may be a viable way to assess everyday memory lapses.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• memory
• cognition
• memory complaints
• daily diary

Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Cognitive Aging and Research Laboratory for their help in collecting and scoring the data. No conflicts of interest exist.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering [grant number R01 EB009675], [grant number R01 EB015853].