Nine out of 10 older people get their blood pressure checked when they visit their primary care doctors, and 73 percent are screened for hearing or vision loss. But what about problems with memory or thinking? Only 16 percent are asked about that.

Those are among the findings in a pair of surveys conducted by the Alzheimer’s Association and released last week. The results show that although Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia are common afflictions of old age, when it comes to detecting early symptoms, many doctors just don’t want to go there.