YYou walk into a room, but you don’t remember what you came for. Or you run into an old acquaintance at work and forget his name. Most of us have had momentary memory lapses like this, but in middle age they can start to feel more sinister. Do they make us look unprofessional or old-fashioned? Could this be a sign of impending dementia? The good news for the increasingly forgetful, however, is that not only can memory improve with practice, but it increasingly appears that some cases of Alzheimer’s can also be prevented.
Neuroscientist Dr. Richard Restak is past president of the American Neuropsychiatric Association, has lectured on the brain and behavior everywhere from the Pentagon to NASA, and has written more than 20 books on the human brain. His latest book, The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening the Mind, focuses on the great unspoken fear that any time you can’t remember where you put your reading glasses, it’s a sign of impending doom. “In America today,” he writes, “anyone over 50 lives in dread of the big A.” Memory lapses are, he writes, the most common complaint 55+ make to their doctors, though much of what they describe turns out to be nothing to worry about.
Leaving a store and not being able to remember where you left your car, for example, is perfectly normal: It’s likely that you just weren’t concentrating when you parked, and therefore the location of the car wasn’t correctly encoded in your brain. Forgetting why you walked into a room is probably just a sign that you’re busy and preoccupied with other things, says Restak.
“Samuel Johnson said that the art of memory is the art of attention,” he says from his office in Washington, DC (at 80, Restak is still a practicing clinical professor at the University Hospital School of Medicine and Health). George Washington) . “Most of these ‘memory loss’ sins are sins of not paying attention. If you’re at a party and you’re not really listening to someone, because you’re still thinking about some work-related matter, you suddenly find that you can’t remember his name. The first thing is to put the information in memory, that is to consolidate it, and then you have to be able to retrieve it. But if you’ve never established it in the first place, it doesn’t exist.”
But what if you forget where you left your car keys and finally find them inside the fridge? “Often, that’s the first sign of something serious: you open the refrigerator door and inside is the newspaper or the car keys. That’s a little beyond oblivion.”
Memory varies, he notes, and some people will always have been scattered. But the real red flag is a change that seems out of place. If you’re a card enthusiast who prides yourself on always keeping track of cards that have been played and suddenly find you can’t do that anymore, it might be worth looking into. Similarly, Restak has noted that many patients in the early stages of dementia stop reading fiction, because it’s too hard to remember what the character said or did a few chapters earlier, which is unfortunate, he says, because reading complex novels can be a valuable help. mental training itself.
Restak and his wife are currently on The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, which has a complex and extensive cast: “It’s an exercise in being able to keep track of the characters without going back from page to page.” If that’s already hard for you, he tells him, it’s okay to underline the first mention of a new character and then go back to recall it later if necessary. “Do what you have to do to keep reading.”
Like following a recipe, keeping track of fictional plots is an exercise in working memory, as opposed to short-term memory (temporarily storing something like a phone number that you can safely forget by the time you dialed it). ) or episodic memory, which covers things like childhood memories. Working memory is what we use to “work with the information we have,” Restak says, and it’s what we should all prioritize. Left to its own devices, he points out, memory naturally begins to decline in your 30s, which is why he recommends practicing it daily.
‘The way we frame something in our memory is how we perceive the world around us’… Richard Restak. Photograph: Greg Kahn/The Guardian
Restak’s book is full of memory games, tricks, and ideas, often involving creating vivid visual images for the things you want to remember. He has a mental map of his neighborhood in his head, incorporating visually familiar landmarks (his house, the local library, a restaurant he often goes to) and for each item on a list that he wants to remember, he will create a visual image memorable. and attach it to some specific place on the map. To remember to buy milk, bread, and coffee later, for example, she might imagine his house turned into a milk carton, the library filled with bread instead of books, and a giant cup of coffee spilling outside the restaurant.
The book also addresses broader lifestyle advice. Recently, research by The Lancet dementia commission suggested up to 40% of Alzheimer’s cases could be prevented or delayed, like heart disease and many cancers, by limiting 12 risk factors, from smoking to obesity to heavy alcohol use.
Restak advises his patients to give up alcohol no later than age 70. Over 65, she writes, you normally have fewer brain neurons than when you were younger, so why risk them? “Alcohol is a very, very weak neurotoxin, it’s not good for nerve cells.”
He’s also a proponent of short afternoon naps, as getting enough sleep helps brain function (which may help explain why sleep-deprived new mothers and menopausal women who suffer from night sweats and insomnia often often complain of mental confusion).
More unexpectedly, he recommends addressing hearing or vision problems immediately, because they make it difficult to engage in conversations and hobbies that make the gears turn. “You have to have a certain level of vision to read comfortably, and if that’s missing, you’re going to read less. As a result of that, you will learn less and be a less interesting person to other people. All of these things really come down to socialization, which is the most important part of avoiding Alzheimer’s and dementia, and maintaining your memory.”
Socialization is the most important part of keeping Alzheimer’s and dementia at bay, and keeping your memory
Are you saying that perfecting your memory can prevent you from getting Alzheimer’s disease? “No one can guarantee that no one else is going to get dementia. Take someone like Iris Murdoch (the late writer, who suffered from it): there probably isn’t a more brilliant woman in all of Europe, so she shows that it can happen. But I compare it to driving a car: you can’t guarantee you won’t have an accident, but by wearing your seat belt, controlling your speed, and keeping your car in good shape, you can reduce your chances.”
However, not all memories are the ones that people want to treasure. Many have mental images they’d rather forget, whether it’s an embarrassing mistake or a painful failed relationship, or intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The fantasy of a clean slate is pervasive in popular culture, from the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (about a couple who break up and use a futuristic machine to erase each other’s memories) to the Men in Black franchise. , where secret agents fighting aliens electronically erase the memories of anyone who sees them in action, thus protecting mere mortals from the truth about what’s out there.
These may be strictly fantasies, but we already have the technology, Restak suggests, to prevent people from accumulating memories that could haunt them in the future. Beta-blockers, drugs sometimes used to treat high blood pressure, have been found to attenuate the emotional response triggered when something frightening is remembered, but Restak says there is evidence that they also interfere with the consolidation of events as memories.
“There are actually discussions about whether these drugs should be part of the arsenal that would be used if we had to send people into dire settings, like after a shooting; It must be a horrible experience, going in there and cleaning these places up.” But it’s a blunt tool: The drugs can’t distinguish between memories that might be helpful in the future to emergency responders and those that are simply distressing, and it raises complex questions about the ethics of manipulating people’s minds.
Don’t look at dementia as a hopeless situation, although it is very frustrating.
Restak also highlights concerns about what he calls “memory wars,” or attempts to influence a nation’s collective memory by disputing what a particular event or period means. “How we frame it in our memory is how we perceive the world around us, and that’s what’s encoded in memory,” he says, pointing to recent political arguments in the US about whether the technical recession in the one the country has entered: defined as two quarters of economic contraction – it is actually a “real” recession. “It’s important because if you think you’re in a recession you have certain beliefs and modes of action, and that’s how we’re going to remember July 2022.”
And, as he argues, memory is intrinsic to who we are. It brings families and couples together, as we remember our shared past. Meanwhile, for individuals, past experience gives meaning and texture to life. “We are what we can remember. The more things you can remember, the more clearly, the more complete and enriched our personalities will be,” says Restak, who argues that the personalities of dementia sufferers can become flatter and more subdued. “People say ‘Oh, they don’t seem to be the same person.'” Perhaps this is why we fear Alzheimer’s so much: memory is closely related to the sense of self.
However, even after memory loss has occurred, it is not necessarily too late to help people retain what is left. A neurologist Restak knows had two patients who were “not sure where they were or what day it was,” but could still play a decent game of bridge. If someone you love has Alzheimer’s, Restak says, don’t bother them with constantly challenging mistakes or memory lapses; instead, find them where they are now.
“What are you still interested in? Talk about it, work with it, because a lot of things stay within the normal range, even with a pattern of dementia,” she says. “Not only do you see it as a desperate situation, although it is very frustrating and very sad.” Where a flash of memory remains, perhaps, there is hope.
Source: www.theguardian.com