My friend recently had dinner with a long-time neighbor who has been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment.
She told me, “He carried on a good conversation all through dinner. He seemed fine to me.”
She was questioning her neighbor’s diagnosis, since in my friend’s mind, her neighbor appeared normal.
My friend’s reaction is very common and somewhat understandable.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is when changes to the memory or thinking go beyond normal aging but are not severe enough to be called dementia. It’s often an early warning sign that something in the brain is shifting.