Yesterday, when I was leaving work, I kept everybody waiting for at least five minutes while I searched for my car keys. I emptied my purse, turned out my pockets, retraced my steps, and came up with nothing (don't you hate it when something jangles in your purse, and it's NOT your keys? I want to ban change for that reason ALONE). It turned out that I had forgotten that I'd purposefully put them on a certain corner of my desk just so I wouldn't lose them... and then piled a bunch of papers on top, helpfully. The thing is... that kind of thing does happen more as you get older... forties are fabulous, but also forgetful. In the new book Carved In Sand, journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin probes the depths of that black hole, and finds more then a set of lost keys... from a number of different perspectives; physiology, psychology, and sociology. So send in your questions for her... she can tell you how to get that noggin running up to speed.
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The author is not alone as she knows. I have had so many instances of putting things in the obviously wrong place like ice cream in the bathroom cabinet. I have experienced terrible instances of not remembering peoples' names and i felt uncomfortable talking at parties. Now i have gotten better after taking all sleeping aids and alchohol out of my life and take lots of vitamins. As well i have practiced making lots of to do lists and I carry around a loose leaf to put down names and places and notes.
I am 25 and have really annoying memory problems. I can't memorize to save my life. I'll be spending my summer memorizing New Testament Greek vocab for a class I'll do in the Fall, because if I don't, the vocab will pull me too far behind. I've heard many middle age people and older tell me I'm lucky I'm young because their memories don't work like they used to. I laugh and tell them I'm ahead of the game. Mine never worked correctly;)
You said that some people are genetically predisposed to bad memory through brain chemestry. Is there a test to determine if that's a cause of bad memory in a particular case? My memory has been bad since I was a kid, and I think I may have had a mild case of autism back in the days before autism was known about. I'd like to know if something like that can be tested.
I am 29 and have suffered from migraines for a decade. You mentioned that oxygen deprivation can cause memory loss. I believe my migraines are influence my memory and abilities. Is there any evidence for this?
Can either guest speculate on the effect of extensive cell phone use? I suspect the constant distraction, especailly while doing other tasks, results in mental impairment.
As an adult with memory problems (Possibly associated with ADD, but never truly diagnosed), and a parent of three adult children with that diagnosis, I wonder if there is another way beside the choice of drugs to help the adult deal with the memory problems that come with that diagnosis. I am on medication already for blood pressure (Family inherited problem), severe allergies, and back problems and do not relish taking any other medications.
I just completed 4 chemo infusions for breast cancer and am experiencing the dreaded chemo brain. What are prospects for improvement, and are there any treatments?
I have good recall; however, a lot of negitives. I was 15 years old in 1979.
My father and step mother started giving me COCAIN & HEROINE ! ! ! Never prosecuted for any crimes they continued 'til 1987 when I was diagnosed with paranoid SCHIZOPHRENIA ! ! ! After a FREEBASING
episode of GOD only knows what.
Neurologists say I have had BRAIN DAMAGE from a volatile concoction of maybe P.C.P.; L.S.D.; CRACK/COCAINE HEROINE GOD only knows what it was.
There was mention of needing volunteers for those of us in middle years to test for Alzheimers and predisposition to it (at least that's what I think I heard) - can you give me more details on this please, before I forget to research it myself!
Hi Allison,
Here's what the guest said - it seems she was merely making a recommendation, not offering specifics: "studies are showing that if you believe that your memory is progressively declining - it's not the same from month to month, you can know that it's getting worse - then what you need to do is take yourself to a university research center for memory or Alzheimer's disease and have an evaluation and become part of a research protocol."
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