Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. ~Austin O'Malley
Yesterday, I took my housemate to the Memory Clinic. She is being evaluated for Alzheimer's. Three different people with different skill sets gave her a lot of tests and interviewed me. There was a physician (a neurologist), a memory specialist and a social worker. The entire process took three hours. It was very thorough and I trust that she will get a solid diagnosis and a treatment plan. We won't know the outcome until next month.
This got me to thinking about memory and has resulted in several hours of Internet searches, reading everything from anecdotes to articles from neurology journals. Lots of it is over my head but still useful for a general understanding. Memory is a funny thing, something most of us lose at particular times and other events remain cemented in the forefront of our recollection, almost as though they are tattooed on our frontal lobes.
Personally, I've always had a sketchy and fluid short-term memory. It is a large dumping ground. Facts, figures, events and snippets of information, storylines of books that have impressed me, quotes, all sorts of things gather there and crop up when I want or need them. Sometimes they've gone into the ether where they can never be retrieved again. It's more like a subtle smell or a fragment of a song lyric that can't quite come to the surface.
Most of the time, I don't remember when I learned those things or how I gathered that information. It doesn't matter. Now that I'm retired, I often don't know the date or the day of the week. It simply doesn't matter.
At what point it becomes significant is what interests me. Many of the questions asked of us yesterday were obvious attempts to get a grasp on her orientation to time and place. They had her draw a few things and tested her verbal skills and understanding. She did her best and I could see her struggling.
But at what point is it pathological and when is it simply a function she doesn't need in her day-to-day life? Is it really that important that she know the day of the week or when something happened?
I came away from the experience yesterday knowing I want to protect my memory. I don't expect it to store everything for me like a super-computer. I don't expect to be able to call up every snippet of information I've ever learned without having to look it up again. (Calendars and books are good for that. They function as my memory and work perfectly well.)
As I age (and that's closer than further away), I want to make sure my mind and brain are active. It's important to not get caught up in pettiness and drama, to make sure that our capacity for memory is respected, protected and used well.
That means making a conscious effort to keep those neurons firing. I was discussing all of this with a friend last night and we both, of a similar age - my being a few years older - decided to learn Spanish. It is a good way to stimulate our brains and exercise our memories.
One of the people at the clinic yesterday, it might have been the social worker, said that people who stay active and involved in their environments, learn new things, stay socially active and interactive, are less likely to develop dementia in old age.
I'm in. This needs to be an effort that is just as conscious as eating well and exercising. Personally, I can't imagine anything worse than getting old and losing my cognitive ability. As has been said by many others thousands of times, when that happens, just shoot me.
Most of the people who read this are too young for this to be an issue - but still something worthy of keeping in mind. Remember. :)
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