Do you know where you left your keys? What's the name of that Oscar nominated actor — the one who's not the frontrunner? Is today Tuesday? Do you remember when you were vice president? And is the possibility that you're not sure of any of those things terrifying to you? Roughly 6 million Americans currently have dementia — a number expected to only increase over the next decade as the U.S. population ages.

And because of dementia's high hereditary connection, it means the children and grandchildren of all those individuals face an unnerving risk in our own futures as well. In a world of escalating demands, sleep deprivation and distraction, how can we aging Gen Xers and Millennials — especially those of us with a legacy of dementia in our families — distinguish between typical stress and age related forgetfulness and something more concerning? And is there anything we can do to stave it off?

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As we get older, our bodies change, and that includes the squishy stuff between our ears. The brain shrinks, blood flow to the region decreases, hormones shift, and suddenly you're struggling to recall the name of that person who got kicked out of the dorm freshman year.

"With aging in general, memory goes down," says Charan Ranganath, PhD., author of the new book "Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters." This can make it very hard to tell the difference in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's, "where it's just barely starting to have an effect," he says.

"Chronic stress is terrible for the prefrontal cortex."

Compounding the confusion is that in our anxious world, many of us feel more scattered than ever. I am still haunted by my experience of a few months ago, when an exhausting, overworked schedule turned my ability to compete even simple tasks into a test of mettle. "You had a glimpse into what dementia feels like," Sara C. Mednick, author of "The Power of the........

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