A new book co-authored by a memory researcher at Washington University in St. Louis is one-stop shopping for all the questions we have about memory and how serious our lapses might be as we grow older.
Mark A. McDaniel, Ph.D., professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says his book, Memory Fitness: A Guide for Successful Aging, relies on many rigorous academic studies but is written for the lay person.
“Our mission is to give the general public a good idea of what they can reasonably expect from their memory capabilities as they age,” says McDaniel about the book he co-authored with Gilles O. Einstein, Ph.D., professor and chair of the psychology department at Furman University. “It also outlines some reasonable expectations about things people can do to perhaps increase their memory performances.”
“As we age,” McDaniel explains, “almost every part of neuron function you can think of starts to deteriorate a bit.”
In other words, neurons — the nerve cells that make up our brains — naturally lose some functionality throughout a lifetime. This is partially responsible for the “senior moments” and other lapses that people commonly encounter, which McDaniel stresses are normal — usually.
One source for all memory concerns
“Older adults who participate in our studies,” says McDaniel, “tell us that the information they want us to convey [about memory] is in different sources — it’s not integrated into one source. What we’ve tried to do with this book is to integrate basic memory processes and how they change with age, cognitive strategies to improve memory, lifestyle changes like diet, nutrition and exercise, and basic information about Alzheimer’s, including ways to recognize and cope with the disease.”
The authors offer strategies to stay sharp, despite those normal losses in memory function that come with age. Some of these are surprisingly simple.
“Take courses, teach somebody something, discuss movies or books; do anything that makes you struggle and problem-solve through significant cognitive effort,” McDaniel suggests. “There are studies that show an association between challenging daily mental activity and memory maintenance as well as less dramatic loss of memory function.”
It appears that by challenging yourself, you can better preserve your memory capacities.
Additionally, regular exercise may help.
“I’m increasingly convinced,” says McDaniel, “that strength training is an important part of an exercise program that one might undertake to improve brain health.”
He notes that just recently, studies have demonstrated women in their 40s and 50s with higher levels of HDL cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol) have lower incidence of Alzheimer’s 15 to 20 years later.
Unfortunately, not all memory lapses that come with age are standard. McDaniel notes that an important aspect of Memory Fitness is to help people know what’s normal and what isn’t.
“Many people are increasingly concerned about Alzheimer’s. We try to address this. We present information about what normally occurs with aging in terms of memory loss and we have a long chapter on what occurs when you have Alzheimer’s, and what kind of memory loss you have there.
“We give people the actual questions physicians use to try to determine whether someone has a real problem or not. People can go through them — however, they shouldn’t self-diagnose — but they can get a feeling for where they stand, based on their performance relative to normal adults.”
McDaniel offers one example of what’s to be expected and what isn’t.
“Trouble with retrieving old information, say, for example the name of an old classmate — that’s normal. Let’s say, by comparison, if you’re traveling home on a route that you’ve traveled many times before, and you feel you don’t know which way to go — you feel lost — that’s abnormal. If it happens briefly — if you have a brief glitch in information retrieval — that’s probably normal. But if the whole route seems unfamiliar, that’s not normal, and you should take note of it and do something about it,” McDaniel advises.
Daily mental tasks
The book includes practical advice to aid in day-to-day memory tasks such as remembering a person’s name, a new telephone number, where you put something or even how to operate your VCR.
“Such things are tough for people to remember because they’re arbitrary — that is, they don’t fit into any kind of reasonable logical organization,” says McDaniel. “For example, some people set their keys down anywhere in their home — there is no rhyme or reason for where their keys are placed. It’s an arbitrary decision each time.
“As we age, one of the big problems we have is remembering things that are arbitrary. The key to remembering tough things is to somehow make them meaningful.”
In the chapter on “Remembering Tough Things,” the authors provide concrete techniques to improve your ability to remember tough things in all kinds of situations.
In their book, McDaniel and Einstein also review the many different memory-boosters on the market today. Their general consensus: the research may suggest some memory enhancement, but not with the definitive degree to which these drugs and nutritional supplements are advertised.
“People that push these supplements as absolute cures or guarantees promise too much,” McDaniel says. “Research doesn’t show this. All it can show is that perhaps these supplements may have some beneficial effects.”