12 common causes of forgetfulness

Dementia

If you’re older and keep forgetting names, a syndrome possibility is dementia. Of the 16 million elders with age-associated memory impairment, about 1 percent will get it. This is an umbrella term for brain disease where you forget things because of mental decline. The most common type is Alzheimer’s, which accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases.⁷