Henrietta Hay's Column

In June I will attend a memorial service for a long time of friend of mine who died this winter after years of living with Alzheimer's disease. His ashes will be scattered high up in the mountains of southern Colorado that he loved so well in the years when his mind was alive.

In my middle years it was cancer I feared. Now it is that insidious disease that takes our minds away, and I suspect that fear is shared by all of my generation. Whenever we forget a word or a name we have a moment of dread.

The good news is that almost all of the memory loss we experience as we age is perfectly normal. If only we could remember, we would know that we always forgot names and odd words now and then. It is not that much worse now.

Every time I blank out for a few seconds the name of that - oh darn - you know - oh, what do you call it - that wonderful four-legged furry creature - oh yes, cat - I panic. But not to worry. It's not that the word was lost, but that it takes a little longer to find it. In computer terms, we are trying to maintain 486 speed on a five-year-old 286. It's there; it just takes longer to get it.

When I mutter that I am running on a ten second delay in remembering names my baby boomer friends assure me that they are doing the same thing. They are, of course, trying to reassure me, but there really is a slight memory loss in the forties.

The experts explain that with age the neural machinery may not be working quite so well as it once did, but they assure those of us who are senior citizens that while we may be slower at dredging up what we want to say, cognitive powers in healthy elderly people remain as strong as ever. That means the bridge game or the Mah Jong game may take a little longer, but we are still playing on a level with our younger friends. That is very reassuring.

Neurologists know this already, but most of us don't even begin to realize the infinite complexity of the human brain. I saw a great article recently that showed graphically the way an image in the brain becomes the word that describes it. To a layman the process is almost beyond belief.

That thing we carry around on our shoulders works night and day and eventually gets cluttered up with facts. If some of them fall out, it is not necessarily a cause for worry. Dr. Barry Gordon, author of Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in Everyday Life, says that there is simply too much information out there that we are trying to get ourselves to remember. Our brains were not built for the modern world, but for the Stone Age. We are pushing the limits of what our brains were designed to do. And the older we get the more we have pushed and the more stuff that has fallen out.

Brain researchers assure us that there is a lot that can be done to compensate for weakening memories. Like muscles, nerve connections get stronger with use. Gordon says that, "There are simple, effective, time-proven techniques people can use to improve memory. With a reasonable amount of effort you could probably improve your memory by 30 or 40 percent."

Most of all, he says, keep your mind busy. Learning new things maintains and strengthens nerve circuits in the brain. Playing bridge or working a crossword puzzle is better than watching TV.

He gives us some suggestions to help. Pay attention. Pace yourself; try to learn things in small chunks. Use memory aids; make lists. Don't be embarrassed by a memory failure. And keep your mind busy!

One final piece of advice from Dr. John Blass, "If you are worried about your memory, you're probably OK. But if your family is worried and you're not, you'd better see a doctor."

I will say good-by to my friend, and be oh so very thankful that my memory still works - most of the time but a little more slowly. There is that ten second delay.