I am becoming more and more alarmed about some issues, mainly the inability to construct thoughtful, coherent responses to any number of issues, posting here, on facebook or in a work email.

My vocabulary has been sliding downhill for the last 3 years or so, as have my spelling and grammar skills. I constantly ask my husband, "What is the word I need" and can't even provide any reasonable description to help him find it for me.

Typing is laughable because my fingers get letters mixed up. The words are all there but letters not in the correct order. After several embarrassing incidents, I now check my emails (and some posts) line by line (several times because of concentration problems) before I hit send. This problem afflicts my writing too, which is why I never take notes in ink. Pencils with erasers are more forgiving.

What makes me the most sad, is I have no desire to read anything long or complicated. I don't write creatively or critically any more, which once was a source of joy for me.

Memorising a new and remembering once known song lyrics is about impossible now, no matter how much I practise.

I tried to bring this up to my GP and RA consultant, a could of times, but they dismiss it. Told them both that my Dad's sister died at 48 after a couple of years of what they called at the time, "arthritis of the brain." It was the 1960s so nothing was known of autoimmune diseases. She just became forgetful in the extreme until she didn't know who or where she was.

I think perhaps my cognitive issues are to do with the raft of immune diseases I am suffering, all of which can affect the brain.

Maybe I am just getting old (if 55 is old). Or maybe I am lazy.

Anyone else experiencing these language fail symptoms?