Cannot Interact with Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac after Opening

After I open Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac, either by opening a .docx file or opening Word from the Applications folder, I am not able to interact with the application whatsoever.  Selecting its icon in the dock does not bring any of its windows to the front, nor does it show the Word menu at the top; instead, it still shows the menu of whatever application was previously selected.  But the windows do exist if I move other windows out of the way.  If I do get to a Word window, I cannot click on anything, select anything, resize it, close it, or scroll.
Other info: If I click and hold the Word icon in the doc, the menu displays as if the application were functioning normally; it does not show a Force Quit option, as it would if Word were frozen.  I do not see any dialogue boxes or anything that would take the focus away from the other windows.
Background: I was able to successfully use Word without any problems before today, using the same installation of the application, same computer, and same operating system. I also never had this problem before Mavericks, though, as I said before, I didn't always have this problem in Mavericks.
How do I get Word to function normally again?  Thanks for any help you can provide!

After letting Word run for quite a while, a popup window told me there was an issue with the database.  I opened the Microsoft Database Utility and rebuilt the database.  It seems to be working fine now.

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