A new study from the University of Kentucky shows that people who notice that their memory is slipping might be right.

Richard Krysio, one of the researchers, said that one of the strong indicators of memory impairment come from self-reported complaints.

To come up with these findings, Krysio and his colleagues asked 531 people with an average age of 73 who don't have dementia, if they noticed memory lapses yearly.

Like Us on Facebook

Researchers found out that 56 percent of the participant experience memory lapses when they reached the age of 82.

Memory and thinking problems also likely developed in participants that reported memory lapses over the years, while one in six participants developed dementia, they added.

Kryscio said that they found it took time for self-reported memory complaint to be an actual case of dementia or clinical impairment.

This could be a significant window of opportunity for intervention before a diagnosable problem shows up, he added.

Despite the fact that their study shows that self-reported memory complaints can be a sign of cognitive impairment later in life, this isn't a cause for panic if one couldn't find his glasses.

However if this is a recurring activity, researchers suggest that they should report this to a doctor for assessment.

Sadly, there is no preventive therapy yet for Alzheimer's disease and other illnesses that cause memory impairment, they added.

This research was published in the online journal of Neurology and was supported by the National Institute of Health, National Institute of Aging and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.