My advice to someone who was recently diagnosed with a memory impairment

April 7, 2021

In 2005, I was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment at age forty-seven. I am now sixty-three and the diagnosis has remained the same. Most people with a mild cognitive impairment diagnosis do not progress to dementia. I see my neurologist once a year so that he can assess how I am doing.

There are things that you can do to help with the mild cognitive impairment symptoms. The first thing that you should do is to find ways of reducing your stress, otherwise your symptoms will most likely increase. I was given this advice by my first neurologist and I have known this to be true. With me, increased stress equals increased MCI symptoms, but especially the fog. I like to try to avoid that from happening.

Since early 2006, I have been taking Galantamine daily for the MCI symptoms. I haven’t had any bad side effects like I had with Aricept. First, I was prescribed four mg Galantamine twice daily but a few years ago it was increased to eight mg twice daily. My neurologist and I feel that I have done well while taking this medicine. I would say that things seem clearer to me. I don’t think that I search for my words as much as I used to and that is a good thing.