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The good news for Alloway is that she and her husband did well on the memory assessment and have nothing to worry about. “It was time well invested,” she said.

“I can take the test again [in future] to see if there is any change that might need a conversation with my doctor.”

The couple’s concern about memory loss is a nothing unusual for their demographic. In a recent report from the BMO Wealth Institute, 1,000 Canadians were surveyed about their views on what they most worried about as they age. Just over 55% identified loss of mental ability as their biggest concern.

For the most part, memory changes are a normal part of aging. But the nagging question for many is whether those changes are normal or whether they should be talking to their doctor.

The Cogniciti test was developed to help adults answer that question.

Designed for people between the ages of 50 and 79, the online tool presents a series of mentally-challenging games to assess memory and attention functions that are affected by aging and disease.

As people age, many don’t know what to expect with their memory and how it will hold up, says Dr. Angela Troyer, program director of Neuropsychology and Cognitive Health at Baycrest and one of the lead members of the project team that developed the test. “When they forget something, is it because everybody does or is it an early sign of a problem? They don’t have good ways for judging that,” she says.

Baycrest sees lots of patients who are concerned about their memory and other thinking abilities, but many older adults will simply worry in silence. “Cogniciti is about reaching people we wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise and giving them a mechanism to measure their cognition,” says Dr. Troyer.