Memories…

One of the things that can occur for many of us Parkies is that we start to have issues with remembering things. Some would say, that is just old age, but even if you do not have that many years under your belt, you may still have trouble remembering things.

I know when I worked with people in the early stages of dementia years ago, it was said that memories with a strong emotional content used to ‘stick’ more than those without that connection. For example, you are likely to remember highlights in your life, the thoughts and feelings you had when you got married perhaps or had your first child. These are things that are important events. However, the short term memory is often affected. I used to say to people, ‘You may not even remember what cereal you had for breakfast this morning, but after all who cares if you had weetbix or cornflakes! If it really doesn’t matter to you, then it is more likely to slip out of your consciousness more easily.

I have noticed a few memory lapses in recent times, not big things, but things I note anyway. One of those things is something that I do almost every night when I sit down with my husband and ask what we are going to watch on telly. I usually struggle to remember what series we are watching and he has to remind me. The funny thing about long-term memory though is if we are checking out options to watch at night. If we are not sure whether we are seen it or not, after a very short snippet, I can usually remember not only that we have seen it, but can say what happens next in the scene.

This week I put some makeup on as we were going to dinner. I can basically count on the fingers of one hand the times I have bothered with makeup in the past year since retiring. So, that night I was getting ready to go to bed and wanted to take my makeup off. Then I realised I couldn’t remember what I used to use to do so. I looked in the cupboard in our bathroom and found a pack of makeup removal wipes. So, I know I used to use them. However, I also have some cotton makeup remover pads and am pretty sure I used them for the same purpose. Trouble is I can’t recall what product I used to put on it to do so. Perhaps it will come to me.

So, it may be just natural ageing, or that things of low importance my brain doesn’t think it necessary to hold on to? Or, it could be a sign that there is some progression in this condition of mine. I sincerely hope not.

Every day I do four things to try and help my brain function.

They are:

• I play a set of games on a programme called “Lumosity” . Check it out on https://www.lumosity.com/app/v4/dashboard and you will see you get three games per day, selected by the app. They have varying levels of complexity and can be quite fun, if at times frustrating.
• My husband and I play a game called “Wordle”. You start with a five letter word and have five chances to find out what the mystery word is. It can be quite challenging but we enjoy doing it together.
• My husband and I play a game called “Heardle” and play the “Heardle Decades” version. Google both of them and see what you might enjoy trying. You get to play short snippets of songs and try to guess what they are. It stretches you to try to remember them at times and at others times an answer seems to just come to you and I often say that I didn’t even know I knew that. But, somehow I did and at times I can guess them quite quickly.
• Our local paper “The Press” has a quiz section and I do the daily quiz and then maybe a codecracker or crossword. Again this forces you to try and recall words and work things out.

So, in doing all of these things, I hope to be able to keep my brain ticking over and challenged, but in an enjoyable way.

What do you do to exercise your brain? Just like the rest of your body, if you don’t exercise your brain, it will get flabby and if it is not challenged on a daily basis, then that will not help your brain.

What memory tricks do you use?

So, after nearly 5 years I am noticing small changes in memory, but that is to be expected.

I just need to keep challenging my brain!