Senior Center

Memory problems

Genes Several genes have been implicated in Alzheimer's, but the big one is the e4 allele of the ApoE gene (on chromosome 19). This variant is found in about a quarter of the population. Having it...
Movement with Meaning: A Multisensory Program for Individuals in Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease
Cameron Camp, director of the Myers Research Institute, began looking at the Montessori method as a way of helping Alzheimer's patients some 10 years ago. The Montessori method, developed...
Many people, particularly as they get older, have concerns about short-term memory problems: going to another room to do something and then forgetting why you’re...
Short-term vs long-term memory Working memory is a relatively recent term, a refinement of an older concept - that of short-term memory. Short-term memory was called thus to distinguish...
Have you ever been driving a car and suddenly you’re not sure what to do? You’re traveling along in usual automatic fashion and there comes a...
A study1 of nearly 2000 older adults has found that eating a Mediterranean diet was associated with less risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or of transitioning from MCI to Alzheimer's...
There is a very common form of forgetfulness that is not really a failure of memory. When we get in our car to drive to place A and find ourselves instead on the road to the more...
I was recently asked for advice in the case of increased “brain blocks” — failures to retrieve information that should be readily accessible. This...
What is it?

Behaviors that affect your memory & cognition

What is neurogenesis? Neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells — occurs of course at a great rate in the very young. For a long time, it was not thought to occur in adult...
What is neurogenesis? Neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells — occurs of course at a great rate in the very young. For a long time, it was not thought to occur in adult...
A perennial topic in the arena of memory improvement is the question of “food for the brain”, and in particular, whether there are dietary supplements that can improve your mental...
A perennial topic in the arena of memory improvement is the question of “food for the brain”, and in particular, whether there are dietary supplements that can improve your mental...
Subliminal learning achieved notoriety back in 1957, when James Vicary claimed moviegoers could be induced to buy popcorn and Coca-Cola through the use of messages that flashed on the...

Everyday memory strategies

Song is a wonderful way to remember information, although some songs are better than others. Songs that help you remember need to have simple tunes, with a lot of repetition -- although a...
We forget someone’s name, and our response might be: “Oh I’ve always been terrible at remembering names!” Or: “I’m getting old; I really can’t remember...
The more hyped and less plausible passive Mozart Effect
There are two well-established strategies for remembering people’s names. The simplest basically involves paying attention. Most of the time our memory for someone’s name fails because we...
As we all know, rhyme and rhythm help make information more memorable. Here's a few ideas that may help you use them more effectively. Rhythm and rhyme are of course quite separate things, and are...