Is it aging or Alzheimer's?

USA TODAY, April, 2007 by Kathleen Fackelmann

At first Cathryn Jakobson Ramin didn't pay much attention to the forgetfulness that first surfaced in her late 30s and early 40s.

She chalked up the brain fog to lack of sleep and a busy schedule that included her work as an investigative reporter and keeping track of two young sons.

Then Ramin started having trouble finding the right word. She would get to the end of a page in a book and have no idea what she had just read. She could no longer multi-task and became distracted easily.

"I felt like I was losing my edge," she says.

Starting at age 50, most people develop some signs of a brain that's slowing down, says memory expert Gary Small of UCLA. "The brain ages just like the rest of the body."

In most cases, the occasional memory lapse is nothing to worry about, Small says.

But ...