MacBook Pro :: Freezes When Open Word Attachments?

This started happening out of the blue a couple of months ago – Everytime I download something, usually word documents from email or an update (basically anything that makes the file whizz into the top right hand corner and start its downloading), about 30 seconds later the spinning ball comes up and the computer grinds to a halt and the only option is to hold down the on button to restart.

When it loads up the thing hasn’t downloaded. So at the moment there is no way to open email attachments which is essential in my job.

P.S: It’s an old company laptop so don’t have the original disks for any software such as word so deleting and re-installing is not an option. I also have no recollection of downloading anything that could’ve affected this.

Info:
MacBook Pro