Read this first

This page compares states on whether a conversation happened. It does not say what was found in that conversation, and it is not a measure of how much memory loss there is anywhere.

Nothing here is medical advice. If you are reading this because you are worried about somebody, the page written for that moment is talking to a doctor about memory, which is about preparing for the appointment rather than about counting them.

Nobody who writes for this site is a clinician, and the figures below cannot tell you anything about the person you care for.

Missouri is near the bottom on raising memory loss with a doctor

Of the older Missourians who say their memory is getting worse, most have never raised it with anyone qualified to look. Most states do a little better. A few do a lot better, and it is worth seeing which.

Memory Care at Home STL desk. Published September 10, 2026.

The most useful thing in this survey is not a number about memory at all. It is a number about a conversation. After asking older adults whether their memory is getting worse, the survey asks the ones who said yes whether they have talked with a health care professional about it.

That question matters more than any other on this site because it is the only one a family can change by Tuesday. Nobody can alter how common memory loss is in their state. Anybody can book an appointment. And the reason to book it is not that a website says so; it is that changes in memory have many causes, some of them treatable, and the ones that are not treatable are still easier to live with once they have been named.

So here is the table, and it is not a flattering one for Missouri. But read it the way it deserves to be read, which is as a description of where the gap is widest, not as a verdict on anybody in it.

The twelve where the conversation happens most

Ordered from the highest share downwards. The full table of all 46 follows, and Missouri is a long way further down it.

Rhode Island, 58.4 percent of those reporting memory loss
Florida, 52.9 percent of those reporting memory loss
Washington, 49.2 percent of those reporting memory loss
Maine, 48.2 percent of those reporting memory loss
Oregon, 47.5 percent of those reporting memory loss
New Hampshire, 47.4 percent of those reporting memory loss
Michigan, 46.2 percent of those reporting memory loss
Vermont, 45.5 percent of those reporting memory loss
Virginia, 45.4 percent of those reporting memory loss
Indiana, 45.2 percent of those reporting memory loss
Oklahoma, 44.8 percent of those reporting memory loss
North Carolina, 44.7 percent of those reporting memory loss

Every jurisdiction in the series

All 46 states and jurisdictions with a complete set of figures in this series, highest first. Missouri is shaded, Illinois is lightly shaded. The range is the confidence interval the CDC publishes with each estimate.
Rank	State or jurisdiction	Talked to a professional	Range
1	Rhode Island	58.4%	48.9 to 67.3
2	Florida	52.9%	42.3 to 63.1
3	Washington	49.2%	42.0 to 56.4
4	Maine	48.2%	41.6 to 54.9
5	Oregon	47.5%	38.5 to 56.7
6	New Hampshire	47.4%	38.5 to 56.4
7	Michigan	46.2%	39.1 to 53.6
8	Vermont	45.5%	38.0 to 53.2
9	Virginia	45.4%	40.6 to 50.3
10	Indiana	45.2%	38.3 to 52.2
11	Oklahoma	44.8%	37.6 to 52.2
12	North Carolina	44.7%	33.2 to 56.8
13	Utah	44.4%	39.0 to 50.0
14	Mississippi	44.2%	37.8 to 50.8
15	Colorado	43.4%	34.6 to 52.5
16	Ohio	43.4%	36.9 to 50.1
17	Louisiana	42.9%	33.3 to 53.0
18	New Mexico	42.8%	34.4 to 51.6
19	Idaho	42.6%	35.3 to 50.3
20	Nevada	42.6%	33.9 to 51.8
21	Illinois	42.5%	28.8 to 57.5
22	New York	41.4%	34.9 to 48.3
23	Kansas	41.0%	33.4 to 49.0
24	Tennessee	40.8%	34.4 to 47.6
25	Alabama	39.8%	33.0 to 47.0
26	Connecticut	39.1%	28.2 to 51.1
27	Iowa	38.8%	29.4 to 49.1
28	West Virginia	38.3%	30.9 to 46.3
29	Maryland	37.9%	28.9 to 47.8
30	South Carolina	37.9%	31.7 to 44.5
31	Wisconsin	37.8%	31.8 to 44.2
32	Minnesota	37.7%	32.3 to 43.5
33	Alaska	36.9%	24.1 to 51.8
34	Pennsylvania	36.5%	27.5 to 46.6
35	Nebraska	36.3%	29.7 to 43.5
36	Texas	36.3%	31.0 to 41.9
37	California	36.2%	26.2 to 47.6
38	Missouri	35.3%	28.6 to 42.5
39	Kentucky	33.9%	24.6 to 44.6
40	Wyoming	33.6%	24.8 to 43.7
41	Arkansas	32.8%	25.5 to 41.0
42	Georgia	31.3%	24.9 to 38.4
43	Arizona	31.2%	24.3 to 39.1
44	North Dakota	28.6%	21.9 to 36.4
45	Hawaii	28.4%	21.8 to 36.2
46	District of Columbia	27.8%	19.2 to 38.3

Methodology

Metric: among adults aged 65 and over who reported subjective cognitive decline or memory loss, the percentage who reported having talked with a health care professional about it. Sorted highest first. The denominator is the group reporting cognitive decline, not the whole older population.

Source: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alzheimer's Disease and Healthy Aging Data, resource hfr9-rurv, collected through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Public domain.

Row selector: Class = Cognitive Decline, QuestionID = Q42, topic TCC04, YearStart = 2019, YearEnd = 2022, StratificationCategoryID1 = AGE with StratificationID1 = 65PLUS, and StratificationCategoryID2 = OVERALL.

De-duplication: the dataset files two row families under YearStart 2019, one ending 2019 and one ending 2022, and they are not copies of each other. Only the YearEnd 2022 family is used here, because it is the only one that covers every reporting jurisdiction. The five regional and national roll-up rows are excluded, CDC-suppressed rows are excluded, and a jurisdiction enters only if all four Cognitive Decline questions carry a value for it, which gives 46. For Missouri both row families report the same value on this question.

Survey years: the series is filed under a 2019 start year and a 2022 end year, and Missouri did not field this module in 2022, so the figure is the CDC's published series estimate. The Missouri figure on the doctor page is this same row. Pulled September 10, 2026 into engine/data/cdc_cognitive_decline.json. Full detail on the methodology page.

Missouri, and how much the range allows

Missouri reports 35.3 percent, which places it 38 of 46. The CDC's range for that estimate runs from 28.6 to 42.5 percent. Illinois reports 42.5 percent and ranks 21, but with a range from 28.8 to 57.5 that covers all but the bottom two tenths of Missouri's, so the two neighbours cannot honestly be separated on this question.

What the range does allow is the comparison with the top. Rhode Island's estimate is 58.4 percent, with a range that starts at 48.9, and that starting point is above the top of Missouri's range. So the gap between Missouri and the best-performing state is not a sampling artefact. It is there in the intervals as well as in the estimates.

The shape of the table is also worth noticing. Only two jurisdictions clear fifty percent. Twenty-two sit somewhere in the forties. Three fall below thirty, ending with the District of Columbia at 27.8. Missouri belongs to the group just above that floor: not the bottom, but in sight of it.

Two out of three, turned around

The Missouri figure means that roughly two of every three older adults in this state who know their memory is getting worse have not mentioned it to a doctor. That is the gap this site most wants to close, and the page for closing it is talking to a doctor about memory: what to say, what to bring, and what the appointment is for.

What raising it does not mean

Talking to a professional is not the same as being diagnosed with anything, and the survey does not ask what came of the conversation. A state near the top of this table is a state where the subject gets raised, which is good, and nothing more can be read into it.

A state near the bottom is not a state where doctors are unavailable or families are careless. The survey cannot see why the conversation did not happen: fear, distance, cost, the assumption that nothing can be done, or a simple reluctance to be the one who brings it up. All of those are ordinary and all of them are reasons a family in Missouri might recognise.

And none of it is about the person you care for. If they have not had the conversation, the useful response is to help it happen, and the National Institute on Aging's guidance on preparing for a doctor's appointment is a plain place to start.

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About this listing. This is an advertisement. New Plan Care is a client of OwnersFirm, which publishes this site, and it has paid to appear in this box. It did not earn the space through any figure on this page: the ranking above is of states on a survey question, and no company appears in it. The service New Plan Care describes is support with the ordinary parts of a day, in the home, by people who are not clinicians. If the question you are carrying is medical, the right call is to the doctor, not to this number. For everything else, call (314) 405-0887.