Memory blanks, losing train of thought, temporary confusion - all are often chalked up to “senioritis” once people reach a certain age. But these symptoms can also be a warning sign of the seizure disorder epilepsy, experts said Friday.

Although most people’s image of epilepsy involves convulsions and other obvious symptoms, in older adults, seizures can take a quieter form, Dr. Eugene Ramsay of the University of Miami School of Medicine in Florida told AMN Health.

Instead, older adults can develop “staring spells,” often mistaken for senior moments, in which they lose awareness of what’s going on around them, Ramsay said.

On Friday, Ramsay and his colleagues discussed epilepsy in older adults during a press briefing held by the National Council on the Aging in Philadelphia.

Everybody loses their keys and becomes more forgetful as they age, but these episodes are a sign of something more serious if they last for many minutes, and people lose track of where they are, he noted.

“That’s not just a lapse of memory,” Ramsay said. “There actually may be more to it than just that.”

These lapses can have very serious consequences, he added, such as if they occur when people are driving, ironing or going down stairs.

Unfortunately, even doctors may expect epilepsy to look like Convulsions, and many older adults with epilepsy are misdiagnosed, Ramsay noted.

According to the National Council on the Aging, 50 million people have epilepsy, and the fastest growing segment of people with the condition is now adults over 65.

In an interview, Ramsay explained that more older adults are being diagnosed with epilepsy because people are living longer, which gives them more years to develop a disease.

In many cases, older adults develop epilepsy if they have a hardening of the arteries, which can affect the brain, he said. Alternatively, people can develop epilepsy after a series of silent strokes, which they may not realize they had, he said.