It is important to realize that not all people with poor memory are demented. Because memory in older people declines with age, this physiologic memory loss associated with aging is called benign amnesia in old age. There are many other reasons why memory is affected. The following points can help us identify dementia and other causes of memory loss: 1. Benign amnesia develops slowly, and the content of the forgetfulness is not comprehensive, and can be recalled after reminder. The memory loss of dementia patients will become more and more serious, and often forget everything, others remind can not be recalled. 2, benign forgetfulness of the elderly in addition to poor memory usually do not appear other problems, while the dementia of the elderly in addition to memory loss, often accompanied by inability to calculate, speak upside down or words do not make sense, in a familiar place to lose their way, the original mastery of the thing is not good enough to do, but also may have a change of character or strange behavior and other manifestations. 3, there is also a considerable part of the elderly self-perceived memory loss is due to emotional disorders, such as anxiety, depression, fear and other adverse emotions can make the elderly remember things not easy. This emotional disorder caused by memory loss is not really “dementia”, it is accompanied by emotional fluctuations and changes, such as the elimination of adverse emotions after the memory will naturally recover. 4, in addition to the brain, many physical organ diseases can also lead to memory loss, and even dementia, including hypothyroidism, heart, lung and kidney failure, chronic alcohol or drug intoxication, malnutrition, anemia and so on. This kind of memory loss caused by somatic diseases can be improved with the cure of somatic diseases.