HOW PHYSICIANS APPRAISE EVERYDAY MEMORY FAILURES OF PATIENTS ACROSS THE ADULT LIFE-SPAN

A person-perception paradigm was used to investigate how primary care physicians appraise young, middle-aged, young-old, or old-old hypothet ical patients (targets) who experience incidences of everyday memory f ailure. The physicians distinguished among targets who experienced sho rt-, long-, and very long-term types of failure. However, their rating s of the point at which they would recommend intervention and of the r eferrals they would make in response to the three types of failure wer e not affected by the age of the target. The physicians' responses are compared with prior research results obtained for lay subjects' appra isals of young versus older targets' memory failures. The implications for primary care physicians' views of the significance of everyday me mory failures in older adults are discussed.