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What memory problems arise at different ages and how to stop its deterioration. Something has become wrong with my memory... How to preserve and strengthen memory Problems with remembering information

What is memory? This is the ability to retain and reproduce previous impressions and experiences in the mind.

Experts say that children, teachers and... spies have the best memory. Maybe you are right. And this is understandable. But I would like to talk about the special specificity of memory in elderly and senile people, when recent events are forgotten and long-past events are well remembered.

I remember one incident from my distant childhood. I was seven years old. In the summer of 1942, when the Germans were driven away from Moscow, my mother took me to a remote village near Moscow to feed me a little. There we - ten or twelve children of different ages - sat down at a large table made of boards three times a day. And a cast iron pot with boiled potatoes, sauerkraut and salted cucumbers. The hungry guys, burning their fingers, grabbed the potatoes, trying to snatch the largest ones, somehow peeled them and stuffed them into their mouths as quickly as possible in order to grab another. The kind woman, the mistress of the house, looked at us and cried quietly...

I remember all this down to the smallest detail: I see the steam rising from the pot, I smell a pleasant smell sauerkraut. I remember it like it was yesterday. But more than sixty years have passed!

And now sometimes I not only don’t immediately remember what I ate or drank yesterday, but what I did, what movie I watched on TV.

Another example. Not long ago I attended the 80th birthday of my beloved teacher. She was left completely alone - no children, no relatives. And she shared with me that her greatest fear was physical weakness and age-related dementia.

To avoid this, every day, in any weather, she takes walks both in the park and along remote streets, measuring the distances she has planned with a semi-athletic step. He stops somewhere in a secluded place and does what he can physical exercise, sits down on a bench to rest and moves on. Regardless of the weather, the sometimes overwhelming laziness and malaise. He overcomes himself and goes. The elderly woman has already been noticed, many envy her willpower, but not everyone can repeat this.

Students still come to her classes to this day. And it’s not the material incentive that plays into this main role, but the struggle to preserve the mind and memory. She memorizes one quatrain every day, always repeating the ones she has already memorized. Which is what she urged me to do too. And one day the neighbors put a piano next to the elevator to be thrown away. We helped bring the instrument into my teacher’s apartment, and now she plays music every day, remembering the works that she played in her distant, distant childhood.

It is about such people that they say: “A bright mind and a clear memory.” But this is not given just like that, but hard work, daily work on yourself.

We and our memory

People's attitudes towards memory loss vary. Some people simply don’t notice this about themselves - happy people! Others, finding that their memory is getting worse, become depressed, nervous, irritable, even whiny. Still others treat age-related memory loss as something inevitable, sometimes even laughing. Within an hour, having not found the glasses or the necessary piece of paper, they begin to joke about themselves.

Many people return home two or three times to check whether they turned off the stove or closed the door. My colleague, the head of the surgical department, once had to cancel an operation and urgently go home out of town, because it seemed to him that he had forgotten to turn off the iron.

Hundreds of drugs and biologically active additives against sclerosis, to cleanse blood vessels, to restore memory. But it’s better not to self-medicate. True, medications offered by a doctor in a clinic and treatment in a hospital do not always help either.

What to do? First of all, don't despair. Secondly, continue monitoring and treatment with your doctor. You can also consult with other doctors.

And to prevent memory loss, I will also remind you of some useful tips.

Any doctor will tell you that memory impairment in older people occurs primarily due to a decrease in brain nutrition, and this, in turn, is the result of a narrowing of the arteries approaching it and the brain vessels themselves. At first, this is caused temporarily, as a result of vascular spasms, and later permanently - with the development of sclerosis in them. Therefore, we will begin our advice with a diet that reduces its development.

How to eat

Sometimes it seems to us that the laws proper nutrition We have already learned by heart: we include vegetables in the diet, we remove fats, we reduce carbohydrates, we don’t eat eggs at all. And yet I think something needs to be clarified.

More vegetables is right, because they contain vitamins, micro- and macroelements, and fiber. But large amounts of raw vegetables can negatively affect the health of those who have gastrointestinal problems.

But you should eat as little fatty meat, sausages, and fatty dairy products as possible, because these foods are a source of cholesterol. Its excess is known to lead to atherosclerosis - narrowing or blockage of blood vessels. But you can’t completely give up fats - they help absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A and E that a person needs.

Reduce your carbohydrate intake. Give up simple carbohydrates, which are easily absorbed by the body (sugar, sweets), but do not forget cereals, bread with bran.

People often ask me: “Can an elderly person drink?” I answer: “It’s possible.” Strong drinks - no more than 50 ml per day. Better yet, a glass of red wine in winter and white in summer.

And we must not forget about taking vitamins. I can recommend a cheap one, but effective complex multivitamins, well known since Soviet times - "Undevit".

Laziness and sleep

I will continue with my simple advice. It is necessary to take walks every day, covering at least 2-3 km a day. Until the age of 70, I walked part of the walk at a brisk pace - so that my heart rate increased by 10-15 beats. IN Lately a certain laziness ensued. However, Cicero also warned: “You should beware of nothing more in old age than laziness and idleness.” Now I walk at a slow walking pace. But this is also healthier than sitting in front of the TV or lying on the couch for half a day.

Let me remind you once again that age-related memory loss is often associated with a deterioration in brain nutrition as a result of narrowing of the supply blood vessels, so it is necessary to do physical exercises for the neck and self-massage of the neck muscles. But first you should consult with your doctor and physical therapy instructor.

For the same reason (spasms, constriction of cerebral vessels), older people should keep their heads warm. With age, there is less hair on the head, and it gets colder faster, which often leads to vascular spasms. Remember the old films: elderly counts always wore nightcaps, and elderly scientists always wore caps.

Any person, and even more so with the beginning of a weakening of memory, needs to remember about the rest of the brain cells, that is, about sleep. After all, sleep is essentially a physiological state of rest and rest, in which the work of consciousness almost completely stops and reactions to external stimuli decrease. Leonardo da Vinci also said: “A day well spent gives a restful sleep.”

Every day before going to bed, closing your eyes and sitting comfortably under the covers, try to remember the whole past day: what you did, who you met, who you talked to on the phone, what you bought, ate, etc. In this process of watching a kind of “movie about yourself,” blessed sleep comes much faster.

Along with the weakening of memory, absent-mindedness is also inevitable. I just put my glasses somewhere and can’t find them anymore. IN in this case This technique helps - put the glasses on the chair, be sure to say out loud several times: “The glasses are on the chair.” Didn't catch what your son or grandson said to you? Don't be shy, apologize and ask to repeat the information again. It's better than missing something important.

Always remember the words of Cicero: “Memory weakens if it is not exercised daily.” Therefore, solve crossword puzzles every day, learn poetry, and in the morning remember what movie you watched the day before, its plot, the names of the characters. Remember what you read: everything storylines, the actions of the main characters. Get creative: paint pictures, compose pieces of music. And communicate more with friends.

But the most important thing is to try to show interest in life, no matter what happens. Life is the greatest gift that should be cherished. Trite words, but look around. Among your and my friends, almost all older people do not know how to do this, they do not know how to enjoy friends, the sun, flowers. They live, having lost all interest, as if mechanically, cursing everything around them, and heavily “carrying their cross.”

Johann Goethe, a long-liver who understood a lot about life, spoke about this: “When you lose interest in everything, you lose your memory.” Don’t isolate yourself, talk more, even with your cat, chat on the phone. According to neurophysiologists, to compose a three-word phrase, the brain, like a computer, independently processes up to 40 thousand words! It is too good workout brain activity.

Finally, being happy is very important to preserve memory. You can and should feel happy and be self-sufficient if you put in some effort. After all, becoming happy is also a lot of internal work.

Concluding my discussion about memory, I would like to quote a joke from the wonderful actress Faina Ranevskaya: “Sclerosis cannot be cured, but you can forget about it.”

And when Ernest Hemingway was asked in his declining years what he needed to be happy, the famous writer answered: “Good whiskey, good fishing and a weak memory.” Perhaps so as not to remember anything bad?..

Memory is an important function of our central nervous system perceive the information received and store it in some invisible “cells” of the brain in reserve, so that it can be retrieved and used in the future. Memory is one of the most important abilities of a person’s mental activity, therefore the slightest memory impairment weighs on him, he is knocked out of the usual rhythm of life, suffering himself and irritating those around him.

Memory impairment is most often perceived as one of the many clinical manifestations of some neuropsychic or neurological pathology, although in other cases forgetfulness, absent-mindedness and poor memory are the only signs of a disease, the development of which no one pays attention to, believing that a person is this way by nature .

The big mystery is human memory

Memory is a complex process that occurs in the central nervous system and involves the perception, accumulation, retention and reproduction of information received at different periods of time. We think most about the properties of our memory when we need to learn something new. The result of all efforts made during the learning process depends on how someone manages to catch, hold, and perceive what they see, hear or read, which is important when choosing a profession. From a biological point of view, memory can be short-term and long-term.

Information received in passing or, as they say, “it went into one ear and out of the other” is short-term memory, in which what is seen and heard is postponed for several minutes, but, as a rule, without meaning or content. So, the episode flashed and disappeared. Short-term memory does not promise anything in advance, which is probably good, because in otherwise a person would have to store all the information that he does not need at all.

However, with certain efforts by a person, information that has fallen into the zone of short-term memory, if you hold your gaze on it or listen and delve into it, will go into long-term storage. This also happens against a person’s will if certain episodes are often repeated, have special emotional significance, or for various reasons occupy a separate place among other phenomena.

When assessing their memory, some people claim that their memory is short-term, because everything is remembered, assimilated, retold in a couple of days, and then just as quickly forgotten. This often happens when preparing for exams, when information is put aside only for the purpose of reproducing it to decorate the grade book. It should be noted that in such cases, turning again to this topic when it becomes interesting, a person can easily restore seemingly lost knowledge. It’s one thing to know and forget, and another thing to not receive information. But here everything is simple - the acquired knowledge, without much human effort, was transformed into sections of long-term memory.

Long-term memory analyzes everything, structures it, creates volume and purposefully stores it for future use indefinitely. Everything is stored in long-term memory. Memorization mechanisms are very complex, but we are so accustomed to them that we perceive them as natural and simple things. However, we note that for the successful implementation of the learning process, in addition to memory, it is important to have attention, that is, to be able to concentrate on the necessary objects.

It is common for a person to forget past events after some time if he does not periodically retrieve his knowledge in order to use it, so the inability to remember something should not always be attributed to a memory impairment. Each of us has experienced the feeling when “it’s spinning in your head, but doesn’t come to mind,” but this does not mean that serious disturbances have occurred in memory.

Why do memory lapses happen?

The causes of memory and attention impairment in adults and children may be different. If a child with congenital mental retardation immediately has problems with learning, then he will come to adulthood with these disorders. Children and adults can react differently to the environment: the child’s psyche is more delicate, so it endures stress more difficult. In addition, adults have long learned what a child is still trying to master.

It’s sad, but the trend towards using alcoholic drinks and drug abuse by teenagers, and even small children left without parental supervision, has become frightening: cases of poisoning are not so rarely recorded in reports from law enforcement agencies and medical institutions. But for a child’s brain, alcohol is a powerful poison that has an extremely negative effect on memory.

True, some pathological conditions that are often the cause of absent-mindedness and poor memory in adults are usually excluded in children (Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis, osteochondrosis).

Causes of memory impairment in children

Thus, the causes of memory and attention impairment in children can be considered:

  • Lack of vitamins;
  • Asthenia;
  • Frequent viral infections;
  • Traumatic brain injuries;
  • Stressful situations ( dysfunctional family, despotism of parents, problems in the team that the child attends);
  • Poor eyesight;
  • Mental disorder;
  • Poisoning, alcohol and drug use;
  • Congenital pathology in which mental retardation is programmed (Down syndrome, etc.) or other (any) conditions (lack of vitamins or microelements, use of certain medicines, the change is not in better side metabolic processes), contributing to the formation of attention deficit disorder, which, as is known, does not improve memory.

Causes of problems in adults

In adults, the reason for poor memory, absent-mindedness and inability to concentrate for a long time are various diseases acquired during life:

  1. Stress, psycho-emotional stress, chronic fatigue of both soul and body;
  2. Acute and chronic;
  3. Discirculatory;
  4. cervical region spine;
  5. Traumatic brain injuries;
  6. Metabolic disorders;
  7. Hormonal imbalance;
  8. GM tumors;
  9. Mental disorders (depression, schizophrenia and many others).

Of course, anemia of various origins, lack of microelements, diabetes mellitus and other numerous somatic pathologies lead to impaired memory and attention, and contribute to the appearance of forgetfulness and absent-mindedness.

What types of memory disorders are there? Among them are dysmnesia(hypermnesia, hypomnesia, amnesia) – changes in memory itself, and paramnesia– distortion of memories, to which are added the patient’s personal fantasies. By the way, others around them, on the contrary, consider some of them to be a phenomenal memory rather than a violation of it. True, experts may have a slightly different opinion on this matter.

Dysmnesia

Phenomenal memory or mental disorder?

Hypermnesia– with such a violation, people remember and perceive quickly, information put aside many years ago pops up in memory for no reason, “rolls up”, returns to the past, which does not always evoke positive emotions. A person himself does not know why he needs to store everything in his head, but he can reproduce some long-past events down to the smallest detail. For example, old man he can easily describe in detail (down to the teacher’s clothes) individual lessons at school, retell the literary montage of the pioneer gathering; it is not difficult for him to remember other details regarding his studies at the institute, professional activities or family events.

Hypermnesia, present in a healthy person in the absence of other clinical manifestations, is not considered a disease; rather, on the contrary, this is exactly the case when they talk about phenomenal memory, although from the point of view of psychology, phenomenal memory is a slightly different phenomenon. People who have a similar phenomenon are able to remember and reproduce huge amounts of information that is not associated with any special meaning. These can be large numbers, sets of individual words, lists of objects, notes. Great writers, musicians, mathematicians and people in other professions that require genius abilities often have such a memory. Meanwhile, hypermnesia in a healthy person who does not belong to the cohort of geniuses, but has a high intelligence quotient (IQ), is not such a rare occurrence.

As one of the symptoms of pathological conditions, memory impairment in the form of hypermnesia occurs:

  • For paroxysmal mental disorders (epilepsy);
  • In case of intoxication with psychoactive substances (psychotropic drugs, narcotic drugs);
  • In the case of hypomania - a condition similar to mania, but not reaching it in severity. Patients may experience increased energy, increased vitality, and increased ability to work. With hypomania, memory and attention impairments are often combined (disinhibition, instability, inability to concentrate).

Obviously, only a specialist can understand such subtleties and differentiate between normal and pathological conditions. The majority of us are average representatives of the human population, to whom “nothing human is alien,” but at the same time they do not change the world. Geniuses appear periodically (not every year and not in every locality), but they are not always immediately noticeable, because such individuals are often considered simply eccentrics. And finally (maybe not often?) among various pathological conditions there are mental illnesses that require correction and complex treatment.

Bad memory

Hypomnesia– this type is usually expressed in two words: “poor memory.”

Forgetfulness, absent-mindedness and poor memory are observed in asthenic syndrome, which, in addition to memory problems, is characterized by other symptoms:

  1. Increased fatigue.
  2. Nervousness, irritability with or without cause, bad mood.
  3. Meteor dependence.
  4. during the day and insomnia at night.
  5. Changes in blood pressure.
  6. Tides and others.
  7. , weakness.

Asthenic syndrome, as a rule, is formed by another pathology, for example:

  • Arterial hypertension.
  • Previous traumatic brain injury (TBI).
  • Atherosclerotic process.
  • The initial stage of schizophrenia.

The cause of memory and attention impairments of the hypomnesia type can be various depressive states (there are too many to count), menopausal syndrome occurring with adaptation disorder, organic brain damage (severe head injury, epilepsy, tumors). In such situations, as a rule, in addition to hypomnesia, the symptoms listed above are also present.

“I remember here, I don’t remember here”

At amnesia It is not the entire memory that is lost, but individual fragments of it. As an example of this type of amnesia, I would like to recall the film by Alexander Sery “Gentlemen of Fortune” - “I remember here, I don’t remember here.”

However, not all amnesia looks like in the famous movie; there are more serious cases when memory is lost significantly and for a long time or forever, therefore among such memory disorders (amnesia) there are several types:

A special type of memory loss that cannot be controlled is progressive amnesia, representing a sequential loss of memory from the present to the past. The cause of memory destruction in such cases is organic atrophy of the brain, which occurs when Alzheimer's disease And . Such patients poorly reproduce traces of memory (speech disorders), for example, they forget the names of household objects that they use every day (a plate, a chair, a clock), but at the same time they know what they are for (amnestic aphasia). In other cases, the patient simply does not recognize the thing (sensory aphasia) or does not know what it is for (semantic aphasia). However, one should not confuse the habits of “zealous” owners to find a use for everything that is in the house, even if it is intended for completely different purposes (from an old kitchen clock in the form of a plate, you can make a beautiful dish or stand).

You have to invent something like this!

Paramnesia (memory distortion) are also classified as memory disorders, and among them the following types are distinguished:

  • Confabulation, in which fragments of one’s own memory disappear, and their place is taken by stories invented by the patient and presented to him “in all seriousness,” since he himself believes in what he is talking about. Patients talk about their exploits, unprecedented achievements in life and work, and even sometimes about crimes.
  • Pseudo-reminiscence- replacement of one memory with another event that actually took place in the patient’s life, only at a completely different time and under different circumstances (Korsakov’s syndrome).
  • Cryptomnesia when patients, having received information from various sources (books, movies, stories of other people), pass it off as events they themselves experienced. In a word, patients, due to pathological changes, engage in involuntary plagiarism, which is characteristic of delusional ideas encountered in organic disorders.
  • Echomnesia- a person feels (quite sincerely) that this event has already happened to him (or saw it in a dream?). Of course, similar thoughts sometimes visit a healthy person, but the difference is that patients attach special significance to such phenomena (“get hung up”), while healthy people simply quickly forget about it.
  • Polympsest– this symptom exists in two variants: short-term memory loss associated with pathological alcohol intoxication(episodes of the past day are confused with long-past events), and the combination of two different events of the same period of time, in the end, the patient himself does not know what really happened.

As a rule, these symptoms in pathological conditions are accompanied by other clinical manifestations, therefore, if you notice signs of “déjà vu”, there is no need to rush to make a diagnosis - this also happens in healthy people.

Decreased concentration affects memory

Impaired memory and attention, loss of the ability to focus on specific objects include the following pathological conditions:

  1. Attention instability– a person is constantly distracted, jumps from one object to another (disinhibition syndrome in children, hypomania, hebephrenia - a mental disorder that develops as a form of schizophrenia in adolescence);
  2. Rigidity (slow switching) from one topic to another - this symptom is very characteristic of epilepsy (those who communicate with such people know that the patient is constantly “stuck”, which makes it difficult to conduct a dialogue);
  3. Lack of concentration- they say about such people: “That absent-minded person from Basseynaya Street!” That is, absent-mindedness and poor memory in such cases are often perceived as features of temperament and behavior, which, in principle, often corresponds to reality.

Undoubtedly a decrease in concentration, in particular, will negatively affect the entire process of memorizing and storing information, that is, on the state of memory as a whole.

Children forget faster

As for children, all these gross, permanent memory impairments, characteristic of adults and especially the elderly, are very rarely observed in childhood. Memory problems that arise due to congenital characteristics require correction and, with a skillful approach (as far as possible), may recede a little. There are many cases where the efforts of parents and teachers literally worked wonders for Down syndrome and other types of congenital mental retardation, but here the approach is individual and dependent on various circumstances.

It’s another matter if the baby was born healthy, and the problems appeared as a result of the troubles suffered. So here it is You can expect a child to have a slightly different reaction to different situations:

  • Amnesia in children in most cases, it manifests itself as memory lapses in relation to individual memories of episodes that took place during the period of clouding of consciousness associated with unpleasant events (poisoning, coma, trauma) - it is not for nothing that they say that children quickly forget;
  • Alcoholization adolescence also does not proceed the same way as in adults - lack of memories ( polympsests) to events occurring during intoxication, appears already in the first stages of drunkenness, without waiting for a diagnosis (alcoholism);
  • Retrograde amnesia in children, as a rule, it affects a short period of time before injury or illness, and its severity is not as distinct as in adults, that is, memory loss in a child cannot always be noticed.

Most often, children and adolescents experience memory impairment of the dysmnesia type, which is manifested by a weakening of the ability to remember, store (retention) and reproduce (reproduction) received information. This type of disorder is more noticeable in children school age, since they affect school performance, adaptation in a team and behavior in everyday life.

For children attending preschool institutions, symptoms of dysmnesia include problems with memorizing rhymes and songs; children cannot participate in children's matinees and holidays. Despite the fact that kindergarten The baby visits constantly, every time he comes there, he cannot independently find his locker to change clothes; among other items (toys, clothes, a towel) he has difficulty finding his own. Dysmnestic disorders are also noticeable in the home environment: the child cannot tell what happened in the garden, forgets the names of other children, each time he perceives fairy tales read many times as if he was hearing them for the first time, does not remember the names of the main characters.

Transient impairments of memory and attention, along with fatigue, drowsiness and all sorts of autonomic disorders, are often observed in schoolchildren with various etiologies.

Before treatment

Before you begin to treat the symptoms of memory impairment, you need to make a correct diagnosis and find out what is causing the patient's problems. To do this, you need to get more information about his health:

  1. What diseases does he suffer from? It may be possible to trace the connection between the existing pathology (or suffered in the past) with the deterioration of intellectual abilities;
  2. Does he have a pathology that directly leads to memory impairment: dementia, cerebral vascular insufficiency, TBI (history), chronic alcoholism, drug disorders?
  3. What medications is the patient taking and is memory impairment associated with the use of medications? Certain groups of pharmaceuticals, for example, benzodiazepines including side effects have similar types of violations, which, however, are reversible.

In addition, during the diagnostic search process, it can be very useful to identify metabolic disorders, hormonal imbalances, and deficiencies of microelements and vitamins.

In most cases, when searching for the causes of memory loss, they resort to methods neuroimaging(CT, MRI, EEG, PET, etc.), which help to detect a brain tumor or hydrocephalus and, at the same time, differentiate vascular brain damage from degenerative one.

There is a need for neuroimaging methods also because memory impairment at first may be the only symptom of a serious pathology. Unfortunately, the greatest difficulties in diagnosis are presented by depressive conditions, which in other cases force one to prescribe a trial antidepressant treatment (to find out whether there is depression or not).

Treatment and correction

The normal aging process itself involves some decline in intellectual abilities: forgetfulness appears, memorization is not so easy, concentration of attention decreases, especially if the neck is “pinched” or the blood pressure rises, but such symptoms do not significantly affect the quality of life and behavior at home. Older people who adequately assess their age learn to remind themselves (and quickly remember) about current affairs.

In addition, many people do not neglect treatment with pharmaceuticals to improve memory.

There are now a number of drugs that can improve brain function and even help with tasks that require significant intellectual effort. First of all, this is (piracetam, fezam, vinpocetine, cerebrolysin, cinnarizine, etc.).

Nootropics are indicated for older people who have certain age-related problems that are not yet noticeable to others. Drugs in this group are suitable for improving memory in cases of cerebrovascular accident caused by other pathological conditions brain and vascular system. By the way, many of these drugs are successfully used in pediatric practice.

However, nootropics are a symptomatic treatment, and to get the desired effect you need to strive for etiotropic treatment.

As for Alzheimer's disease, tumors, and mental disorders, the approach to treatment should be very specific - depending on the pathological changes and the reasons that led to them. There is no single recipe for all cases, so there is nothing to advise patients. You just need to contact a doctor, who, perhaps, before prescribing drugs to improve memory, will send you for additional examination.

Correction of mental disorders is also difficult in adults. Patients with poor memory, under the supervision of an instructor, memorize poetry, solve crosswords, practice solving logical problems, but the training, while bringing some success (the severity of mnestic disorders seems to have decreased), still does not produce particularly significant results.

Correction of memory and attention in children, in addition to treatment with various groups of pharmaceutical drugs, includes classes with a psychologist, exercises for memory development (poems, drawings, tasks). Of course, the child’s psyche is more mobile and better amenable to correction, unlike the adult psyche. Children have the prospect of progressive development, while older people only experience the opposite effect.

Video: bad memory - expert opinion


It is difficult to say what the norm is in relation to memory. This is individual for each person. There is no upper limit for memory. There are descriptions of supermemory, where a person remembers the smallest details of everything he encounters, but this is rare.

In official sources, memory is defined as the ability to receive, store and reproduce life experience. This is not only a physiological, but also a cultural process.

It is known that memory is divided into long-term and short-term. Their ratio also varies from person to person. If you have a predominant long-term memory, then most likely you have difficulty remembering material, but you can easily reproduce it after a significant period of time. If, on the contrary, you quickly memorize on the fly, then you probably forget quickly. This is a feature of short-term memory. RAM allows you to remember information up to a certain point.

A person takes memory for granted until he is faced with the problem of forgetfulness. There are many types of memory impairment, and many factors influence this process.

Causes of memory impairment

For simplicity, you can divide them into groups.

1) Associated directly with brain damage. These include lesions such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke (acute cerebrovascular accident), and oncological diseases of the brain.

2) Deterioration of brain function due to diseases of other organs and organ systems.

3) External unfavorable factors, such as lack of sleep, stressful situations, a sharp change in living conditions, increased stress on the brain, including memory.

4) Chronic intoxication. Alcohol abuse leads to memory impairment, medicines(especially tranquilizers, sedatives), smoking, drug addiction.

5) Age-related changes in the brain.

Memory is associated with different modalities. There are visual, auditory, motor modalities. Their combination and predominance are individual. Some people will remember it easier if they speak the material out loud. It’s easier for someone else to remember what the page on which the necessary information is written looks like or to imagine the file cabinet drawers where he supposedly put the necessary file. The third person will easily recall information using a logical diagram or associative connection. The fourth will write a summary.

Different areas of the brain are associated with different functions, promoting memory. For example, the temporal regions are responsible for the perception of hearing and speech. The occipito-parietal regions create visual and spatial perception, with the parts of the right hemisphere giving color, optical-spatial and facial perceptions, and the left hemisphere - letter and object perceptions. The lower parietal areas are responsible for the actions of the hand and speech apparatus. When they are affected, a person cannot recognize objects by touch (astereognosia).

And depending on which area of ​​the brain is affected, the corresponding types of memory will be impaired.

Recently, more and more reliable information has appeared about the influence of hormones on the processes of thinking and memory. There is a positive effect of vasopressin, testosterone, estrogen, prolactin on accelerating learning, stimulating attention, and transferring information from short-term memory to long-term memory. Oxytocin, on the other hand, has the opposite effect, which causes memory deterioration and forgetfulness in women after childbirth and when breastfeeding.

Diseases leading to memory impairment

Let's look at the diseases that most often cause memory problems.

First of all, as the most common, these are traumatic brain injuries. With them, complaints of memory impairment almost always appear, and the more serious the injury, the more serious they are. TBI is also characterized by the phenomena of retrograde and anterograde amnesia. In this case, the person does not remember not only the moment of injury, but also the events preceding and following it. Sometimes confabulations and hallucinations appear against this background. Confabulations are false memories produced by the person themselves. For example, when asked what he did yesterday, the patient will tell you that he went to the theater, walked in the park and ate ice cream. In fact, he did not leave the apartment or ward, since he had been ill for a long time. Hallucinations are pathological images that did not exist and could not exist.

A fairly common cause of memory impairment is cerebral circulatory disorder. causes a decrease in blood flow to all parts of the brain and disruption of its functioning, including memory impairment. Recently, atherosclerosis has become common cause memory impairment in young people, although previously it was detected mainly in the elderly. In addition, this is a provoking factor in the development of acute cerebrovascular accident. develops in one or another area of ​​the brain, stopping blood access to it almost completely. This grossly disrupts the functions of these zones and memory among them.

Similar symptoms can be observed with. One of its serious complications is angiopathy - vascular damage, in which there is thickening of the vascular wall and closure of small vessels. This leads to impaired blood circulation in all organs, including the brain, and as a result, memory deteriorates.

Memory deterioration may be the first a sign of thyroid disease associated with a lack of production of its hormones (hypothyroidism). The latter are 65% iodine. Decreased memory in this case is combined with an increase in body weight, the appearance of depression, apathy, edema, muscle weakness, and irritability. To prevent iodine deficiency, first of all, you should adjust your diet by adding foods such as iodized salt and dairy products (the latter are preferable), seaweed and sea fish, persimmons, hard cheese and nuts.

It is possible to use physiotherapeutic methods, for example electrophoresis with intranasal (transnasal) administration of glutamic acid preparations.

Psychological and pedagogical correction is also successfully used to help patients with memory impairment. With the help of a teacher, the patient learns to remember using other brain functions instead of the affected ones. For example, if a person cannot remember words spoken out loud, then by imagining a visual image meaning the same word, memorization is possible. This is difficult, long, painstaking work. It is necessary not only to learn to remember using other connections in the brain, but also to bring this process to automaticity.

This symptom is dangerous only as an unfavorable prognostic sign, indicating the progression of another disease. In addition, this disrupts the patient’s social adaptation and worsens his quality of life.

Which doctor should I contact if my memory is worsening?

If you suspect you have a memory disorder, then you should contact a neurologist, neuropsychologist or therapist who will conduct an additional examination. But there are some things you can do yourself and start right now.

It is known that most often, when a patient complains of memory impairment, it turns out that the main reason is impaired attention.

This is very common among older people and schoolchildren. Events and information are underestimated and perceived fleetingly, especially if the situation is familiar to the person. And this state of affairs is quite difficult to change. The only way out is Full time job over yourself, training attention and memory: record important data on paper, keep a diary, master mental arithmetic to perfection.

This method of training the brain is well described in the book of American professor Lawrence Katz. These exercises activate the brain, promote the creation of new connections and associations, and engage various parts of the brain.

Here are some of these exercises:

Try to perform your usual actions with your eyes closed.
- If you are right-handed, try doing something with your left hand (for a left-hander - with your right): combing your hair, writing, brushing your teeth, putting your wristwatch on your other hand.
- Master Braille (a reading and writing system for the blind) or sign language, at least the basics.
- Learn to type on the keyboard with all ten fingers.
- Learn a new type of needlework.
- Learn to distinguish coins of different denominations by touch.
- Read articles about things you’ve never been interested in before.
- Try to go to new places, meet new people.
- Try to speak in unfamiliar languages.

The brain also constantly needs training. And remember that how long you will be “of sound mind and solid memory” depends largely on you.

Moskvina Anna Mikhailovna, general practitioner

Video on the topic

Memory deterioration threatens not only older people: now this problem is very familiar to people of working age, students, and even schoolchildren.

Of course, much more often memory deteriorates among working people: in the modern frantic pace of life, they need to “keep so much in their heads” that even diaries and calendars, unfortunately, do not always help - they can also forget to record the necessary information on time. Why does memory deteriorate, and how to deal with this problem? It is this issue that we will touch upon with you today, we will tell you the main reasons for this problem and what needs to be done if your memory deteriorates.

There are different types of memory, but we are talking about neurological, or nervous memory: thanks to it, we remember current events and other information. The central nervous system stores not only information that can be expressed in words, but also our emotions and impressions. However, we are usually worried that we cannot always remember phone numbers and dates, first and last names, and sometimes we forget to do what is necessary: ​​if memory deteriorates all the time, you can even forget about a business meeting or something else. something very important in life.


Why

First, you should find out why memory deteriorates, what are the main causes of this disease. Memory impairment can be caused by any factors, including serious illnesses. In these cases, treatment methods are determined by a doctor - a neurologist, psychiatrist or other specialist. If we are not talking about serious failures or amnesia, complete or partial, but about an incomprehensible deterioration of memory, which has not failed before, then it is quite possible to cope with this on your own.


For most people, memory deteriorates for the same reasons.

First of all, these are psycho-emotional disorders: stress, anxiety, and then depression - a person is in a state of chronic fatigue almost all the time, and cannot get out of it. After 40 years, this is especially dangerous: memory weakens quickly, it causes anxiety, and everything gets worse.


What to do?

Even if you cannot remember something, it is better to remain calm: proper rest and positive emotions will help improve the situation. While relaxing, you can solve logic problems and puzzles, read interesting books, but watching endless TV series and talk shows is unlikely to help get rid of psycho-emotional stress.


Constant haste and the habit of doing everything in a hurry lead to the fact that absent-mindedness and forgetfulness become the norm. When a person is in a hurry, he does not notice what exactly he is doing, and this again becomes a reason for stress: everyone knows the feverish state like “did I turn off the stove”, or “did I close the garage”, because most of our daily activities are carried out “on automatic." This “automatic machine” must be turned off: learn to do everything consciously, and do not divide things into small and important ones - watch yourself, every action you take, and gradually your memory will begin to improve.

Active and healthy image Life is an excellent tool for restoring and preserving memory. Not everyone has time to do fitness or just go to the gym, but everyone can remember their daily routine or walks in the fresh air. Try to walk whenever possible, and forget about alcohol and cigarettes: they impair the ability to absorb information and remember words and images.

Only healthy food

Many experts talk about metabolic disorders, lack of nicotine and folic acid, as well as other B vitamins. This cause of memory impairment is the most common, and it is related to nutrition. Most working people eat “as they have to” - not according to the principle of usefulness, but according to a different principle - so that it is fast, satisfying and tasty.

We will not describe the harm from fast food now - a lot has been said about this, but let us remind you which products should be present in the diet at all times. Fortunately, there are many such products, and it is possible to ensure normal functioning of brain cells without problems - of course, you will have to give up many bad habits. But health is more important, isn't it?

For example, regular apples, if eaten regularly, will help get rid of iron deficiency and protect brain cells from the “attacks” of free radicals: the substances contained in apples help the body produce more neurotransmitters necessary for memory restoration, and also prevent the accumulation of cholesterol in the blood. It is known that it is with an excess of cholesterol that deposits and plaques form in the vessels - the blood supply to the brain deteriorates, and memory weakens.


Polyunsaturated fatty acid- this is something without which normal activity of brain cells is simply impossible. They are in fatty sea ​​fish, and you don’t need to buy expensive fish - ordinary herring will do; V vegetable oils first pressing, fresh nuts and seeds, leafy vegetables, sprouted wheat. Among leafy vegetables, spinach stands out for its usefulness - it’s a pity that this plant is not very popular in our country. Eating spinach improves brain function and increases the resistance of its blood vessels to damage.


Carbohydrates are also necessary - not simple ones, which are rich in white bread and sweets, but complex ones, from which the brain will receive nutrients - these are cereals, legumes and grains, vegetables and unsweetened fruits, durum wheat pasta and baked potatoes.

Nuts and dried fruits are very useful for nourishing the brain.

I would also like to note such a product as Jerusalem artichoke - it is rich in antioxidants, carbohydrates and B vitamins. If you grow and prepare it correctly, dishes made from it will taste very pleasant.

Hemp products are also interesting - for example, hemp oil and hemp porridge. Now the value of this plant, which has undeservedly become the talk of the town, is gradually being remembered: doctors of the past used cannabis to treat many diseases, including epilepsy, migraines, multiple sclerosis, depression and sleep disorders. Hemp oil can be purchased at a pharmacy or store healthy eating, and add it to dishes like any other.

Among the seasonings, if your memory is deteriorating, you should choose rosemary and sage: the first reduces brain fatigue and improves the ability to remember, and the second restores the balance of essential nutrients in the brain. chemical substances. Aroma oils obtained from these plants will also help.

Of the drinks, the most simple choice to improve memory there will be natural green and black tea in reasonable quantities, and ordinary non-carbonated water - mineral, spring, artesian - in general, clean.

After all, brain tissue contains about 80% water, and its dehydration leads to the inability to store and reproduce information.

Memory training

Experts have noted that people who complain of poor memory almost always have impaired concentration. Any information or event is perceived as if in passing, and changing this perception is not easy.

So what can you do if your memory is deteriorating? Constant training of memory and attention helps here. For example, in the books of the American neuroscientist L. Katz, unusual methods are given that activate these processes: they “force” different parts of the brain to act and create new neural connections.

The simplest exercises: learn to walk around the apartment with your eyes closed, comb your hair and brush your teeth with your left hand (for left-handed people - with your right hand), master the Braille reading system, start learning new language etc. In general, try to do the most ordinary tasks in unusual ways. This will make it possible to use other segments of the brain, which will lead to a noticeable improvement in memory.



And know the main thing that we are best protected from any problems and troubles in any situation by a healthy lifestyle and positive thinking. And this, of course, is always worth remembering!

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Doctor of Medical Sciences K. UMANSKY (Denver, USA).

Doctor of Medical Sciences K. G. Umansky is a long-time author of our magazine. Konstantin Grigorievich, who now lives in the USA, is glad to meet his readers.

Areas of the brain responsible for memory.

In Alzheimer's disease, glomeruli of altered neurons and plaques of amyloid, a protein-carbohydrate complex, are visible under a microscope.

Often, especially from older people, you can hear: “I forgot again. Damn sclerosis! Younger people usually say this as a joke. Older people tend to be concerned about their forgetfulness. Where can you go?

Is memory deterioration really an inevitable process? And what is sclerosis?

Who doesn’t know that over time, blood vessels undergo age-related changes. And not only the vessels of the brain, but also of all other organs and tissues: their walls become rigid and lose elasticity. These changes are called sclerotic. However, it never occurs to any of us to diagnose ourselves with vascular sclerosis of the liver, pancreas or other organs.

Age-related memory impairments in healthy people are often imaginary. They are almost always associated with the appearance of absent-mindedness and a decrease in the ability to concentrate for a long time. Of course, with age, various kinds of disorders may appear due to narrowing of the lumen of the vessel, or even in the form of pinpoint hemorrhages in different areas of the brain. The effect of such disorders on memory largely depends on the location. But more often than not, even such, sometimes quite severe, vascular lesions do not lead to memory impairment. There are many examples of this. Thus, the greatest scientist, founder of microbiology, author of great discoveries of the late 19th century, Louis Pasteur, who lived 73 years filled with continuous creativity, at an early age, due to vascular damage, practically lost an entire hemisphere of his brain. However, his memory and performance did not suffer from this.

I happened to observe a young man with excellent memory and intelligence who suddenly died from a cerebral hemorrhage. An autopsy revealed that he had a very rare congenital cerebrovascular disease. They looked like fragile tubes, like dry pasta, that broke with a crunch when bent.

Various diseases often lead to a decrease in memory function, not only of the brain, but also of other organs, almost any. Many factors play a role here, due to both metabolic processes and constant preoccupation with some kind of suffering. But there are other memory destroyers. For example, Israeli biologist M. Aranson in 2001 published research results showing that hours of watching television impairs memory and increases the risk of dementia. According to him, deafening music can also have the same effect.

It is not so rare to encounter specific diseases accompanied by amnesia - memory loss (from the Greek a - denial, mneme - memory), partial or complete, temporary or permanent. I will not dwell on psychogenic conditions and diseases that sometimes lead to such disorders. This is the field of psychiatry, which observes similar disorders in schizophrenia, epilepsy and other diseases of various origins, as well as in some forms of senile dementia.

Amnesia varies in its manifestations. In some cases, a person remembers exclusively what happened before the disease, in others he does not remember anything or partially remembers what preceded the disease, for example, an injury. The latter type of amnesia is called retrograde and is one of the common signs that determine the severity of a concussion, for example, in a car accident. In other cases, well-known facts and information are distorted in memory. There is another severe type of amnesia, in which the patient suddenly forgets all his past life and who he is, including passport details. Such conditions can occur after severe physical or mental trauma, intoxication, and even without apparent reason when a thorough examination of the brain does not reveal any abnormalities. The mechanism of this pathology is still unknown. Treatment in these cases rarely gives favorable results. But sometimes a spontaneous “enlightenment” suddenly occurs and the patient remembers almost everything.

There are other types of diseases in which the loss of memory and intelligence is caused by special, specific processes due to systemic lesions of the brain. They are characterized by a condition designated by the general concept of “progressive dementia” (from the Latin dementia - madness).

In the current, eighth year of the 21st century, it is worth looking back, especially at the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, at the turning point in the creative existence of mankind. It was at this time when Earth diligently entangled in nets railways And telephone lines, invented radios and airplanes, tanks and rapid fire weapon, people learned about the existence of bacteria, viruses and much more. At the same time, there was a rapid development of medicine, and in particular neuropathology, which improved research methods.

Over the past century and a half, the average human life expectancy has increased significantly. Perhaps it’s worth dwelling on this in a little more detail.

The lifespan of a caveman did not exceed 20 years. IN Ancient Rome people lived on average a little longer than 25 years. By the middle of the 19th century, the average life expectancy of people, estimated at 80% of the population, reached 37 years. From then to our time, in just a century and a half, it has increased by developed countries up to 70 years, that is, almost doubled. And that is why, until the second half of the 19th century, many diseases that developed after 45-50 years were practically not observed. Their descriptions cannot be found not only in the great Greek physician Hippocrates, who lived 400 years BC, but also in the no less great Avicenna, who lived about 1000 years ago, as well as in the European Paracelsus, who lived in the 16th century.

Only from the second half of the 19th century did doctors begin to identify diseases that appeared mainly in older and older people. Then, to the many already known lesions of the nervous system, researchers added a number of new ones, which were very rare, in which, for reasons still unknown, certain parts of the nervous system suddenly begin to spontaneously degenerate, that is, collapse. At the border of the 19th-20th centuries, many clinically similar, but morphologically different, that is, different in their structure, diseases of the nervous system with an inevitable tragic outcome are described. About two dozen of them are known: Schilder's disease - Foix, Pierre Marie, Kaltenbach and others. They are very rare, approximately 1-10 patients per million inhabitants.

The best known is Alzheimer's disease (see Science and Life No. 3, 1992). She is the one who is most popular right now. Let us remember the history of its first description. Almost a hundred years ago, in 1906, Alois Alzheimer first described the results of a study of the brain of a 55-year-old woman who died after five years of suffering from severe, progressive dementia.

For a long time, this disease quietly coexisted with many other progressive lesions of the nervous system. Quantitatively, Alzheimer's disease makes up only a small percentage of such diseases. Qualitatively, they are all one of the main sources of growing medical and social problems. These patients, with no prospect of recovery, form an ever-increasing layer of people oppressed by their condition and oppressing those around them with the doom and impotence of modern medicine. We must face the truth, as in the eyes of patients who express constant pain and hope, and, without deceiving ourselves, now look for new approaches to the prevention and treatment of this disease.

Alzheimer's disease is severe. Beginning imperceptibly, more often after 55-60 years, it often manifests itself for the first time, as if gradually, in a basic lack of hygiene: a person stops washing, cutting his nails, or changing his linen. Rest is replaced by lengthening periods of inactivity. Memory gradually becomes worse. Soon, so-called aphasia appears - the patient ceases to understand speech addressed to him, answers inappropriately or on a different topic altogether. He doesn't seem to hear the question. Gradually, reading and speech become more and more impaired, and handwriting changes. Multiple rhythmic repetitions occur last word phrases. Somewhat later, the patient ceases to recognize those around him, and movements become imprecise. Hallucinations, various kinds of convulsions, including epileptic seizures, and even unstable paralysis may be observed. The disease usually progresses over two to four years, rarely more. But it must be said that the appearance of the first external signs disease is far from the beginning, but a continuation of a process that had been going on unnoticed for at least several years before. And to catch its beginning by any means modern methods It's simply impossible.

I have not given all, but many of the clinical details and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, clearly expressed, so that readers would have less speculation and anxiety about their own forgetfulness.

It would stay that way rare disease Alzheimer's is an inconspicuous disease, one among other infrequently occurring lesions of the nervous system included in the group of neurodegenerations, if not for President Reagan's illness and his courageous, essentially farewell, address to the nation after the diagnosis.

Most people only learned about its existence then. It is also heard by doctors, who have become more wary, but not always sufficiently informed. And hence the avalanche of excessive, often superficially made diagnoses, which are essentially unfounded verdicts, have fallen on society. And yet - a wave of threats to all humanity! For example, Ukrainian professor Vladislav Mertsalov “calculated” that by 2050 the number of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in the United States could increase to as many as 10 million people, and worldwide, in his opinion, their number will reach 100 million!

From my point of view, such intimidating data are based on premises provoked more by emotions than by the essence of the phenomenon.

Nowadays, the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is made with amazing ease for many patients, including young ones. In fact, almost any gradual decline in memory that appears is now often and unconditionally regarded as an initial manifestation of Alzheimer's disease. At least, I observe a similar trend in the USA.

My personal experience, as well as the experience of the development of medical science in general, shows that in addition to real epidemics, infectious and other diseases, there are epidemics that have a psychogenic (suggested) origin (the so-called iatrogenies; the name comes from the Greek words iatros - doctor and genos - origin), originating not so much from the public perception of certain events, as, for example, happened in connection with the illness of President Reagan, but from the general tendency to a heightened perception of “sensations,” especially in medicine. And also, probably, because any person, thinking about his old age, possible infirmity and some unpleasant prospect of the occurrence of senile changes in the psyche, seems to “try on” them for himself. Such “examples” are inevitable, however, in my deep conviction, there is no reason for panic, just as there is no sensational “silent epidemic” of Alzheimer’s disease. I have sufficient fundamental grounds for this statement. Studying the issues of acute and chronic pathology of the nervous system of various origins for more than forty years, I constantly worked on the problem of progressive lesions of the nervous system, where the so-called neurodegenerations were leading in the development of the pathological process. Alzheimer's disease occupies a very modest place among them.

What did these long-term, comprehensive studies, covering more than four hundred patients, show? First of all, the exogenous, that is, external, incoming factor (viral, toxic, etc.) was completely excluded. It also turned out that any acute diseases - from colds and infections to injury or intoxication - are just provoking moments that reveal the external manifestations of an already existing disease in a latent form. In addition, it has been established that hereditary factors in most cases can play a significant role.

The most important thing is that a strict connection was noted between a number of lesions of the nervous system in general, caused by the primary pathology of various endocrine formations - the pituitary gland, the thyroid and parathyroid glands, the adrenal glands and other disorders of their functions, most of which are causally caused by hereditary factors that are realized in various ways on different stages life. This is where the multiform nature of damage to the nervous system comes from. Similar ideas have been expressed before, but without clear evidence.

We found the answer in 1993, when it was first clearly shown that neurodegeneration is a neuroendocrine pathology.

IN last decades Science has established that the human brain, in addition to 13 billion(!) nerve cells and the pathways connecting them in the form of the finest fibers, has its own intracerebral, very powerful neuroendocrine system. The latter consists of many nodes that ensure the normal activity of various parts of the nervous system. Dysfunction of any such nodule may be the cause of a certain nervous disease. In particular, the most famous of them are Parkinson's disease and parkinsonism (their division is very arbitrary). They are caused by dysfunction of the substantia nigra of the brain, which produces the neurohormone - dopamine. The works of American researchers in the late 70s of the last century established that disruption of the activity of another endocrine nodule of the brain (unpaired nucleus of Meynart), as a rule, leads to the development of Alzheimer's disease, death of cells in the cerebral cortex, and amyloidosis. It’s strange that many people have forgotten about this now.

This inevitably begs the question about the nature of such diseases in general. Could they be the result of a hereditary predisposition to neuroendocrine disorders? Obviously, in the overwhelming majority, they can. A little clarification is necessary here to avoid confusion. Well-known endocrine diseases, such as pathology of the thyroid or parathyroid gland, diabetes and some others, are in no way associated with neurohormones. This is a completely different endocrine system - somatic (“bodily”).

It has already been said above that most often the appearance of diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and similar ones is caused and stimulated by various identifying factors - infections, intoxications, injuries, etc. And only now it becomes clear that the starting mechanism of the disease, its “fuse” has another reason. The leading contenders for this role are genetic, hormonal, or more precisely, neurohormonal disorders.

The first confirmation that the chosen direction of the research was correct was received more than fifteen years ago, when in a number of cases the use of certain neurohormones, and hormones in general for similar diseases, showed some effectiveness, in particular in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerations. Unfortunately, the hormonal system of the brain and the elements that make it up are still little studied.

In the meantime, medical science has to patiently watch the emergence of the most fantastic proposals and speculations in overcoming such ailments in general and Alzheimer's disease in particular.

Such attempts include, for example, the proposal to use the well-known adsorbent Unithiol (BAL - British anti-lewisite, invented during the First World War to treat the consequences of gas attacks), made recently by Ukrainian doctors, who for some reason believe that this drug was created only in 1950 in Ukraine by a certain V.E. Petrunkin... Or a vaccine (to what pathogen is unknown), as reported by the American media.

Unfortunately, it will not be possible to overcome diseases associated with age-related memory loss soon, and it is unclear whether it will be possible at all, because, as was said, the external manifestations of such diseases are usually discovered gradually, after a fairly long period after initiation, when what happened is already irreversible. So far, only hopes for prevention and, possibly, stopping the disease process are promising.

But, again, we must understand that such diseases are very rare, as are cases of senile dementia. The reasons that cause memory loss are, in the vast majority of cases, much more diverse and not so severe. They often respond well to modern, well-known methods of prevention and treatment.

It should also be said that in a significant proportion of cases when patients complain of memory loss, in fact, something completely different is happening to them - most often there is a violation of attention, so characteristic of age-related changes. Weakening of attention leads to underestimation, a certain fleeting perception of situations and the completely familiar world around us. It is sometimes quite difficult to get rid of this. The only remedy is constant training creative work, repeating to yourself most important points, recording the necessary things with records, and even better - keeping a diary. Isn’t it true that an extreme situation is always remembered quite firmly at any age? But the main thing is not to forget to look at the notes.

And you shouldn’t be afraid of sudden forgetfulness, even jokingly calling it “sclerosis” or “Alzheimer’s.” As the famous humorist writer of the 20s of the last century Arkady Averchenko liked to say, repeating folk wisdom, “God forbid, you can call it on your own head!” But this, perhaps, is already in the realm of superstition...

Simple memory training techniques

Memorization. It has long been known that cramming does not develop memory. And 80-year-old scientists remember specialized information better than their young students. It's all about the structure of the perception of information, and not about its chaotic swallowing.

Read the text and try to understand its main points. You can underline them, write them down, repeat them to yourself.

Read the text again, paying attention to the subtleties. Try to connect them to the main ideas. Repeat the main thoughts to yourself and understand their connection with the secondary ones. To deepen your understanding of the text, it is important to ask questions about the main points.

It is useless to read the same text over and over again without remembering the main ideas. Repeat the text several times to yourself or tell someone. By the way, this is exactly how professionals prepare for important speeches and presentations, repeating the main points to themselves.

Even when you are going to talk to your family and loved ones about something important, say your speech to yourself. The main thing is to establish the final idea that you want to convey. Don’t get lost in the little things, then your opponents will be forced to speak to the point.

Association method. This is a very important method. Example. First and last names that you previously easily remembered often “pop out” from your memory. Try to associate the “stuck” surname with an object or image. Let's say the famous diplomat Gorchakov - associate his name with bitterness, mustard. The amazing Russian writer Leskov - a young forest will appear before your eyes (you can repeat the image several times).

When going to the store, do not write a list, but count how many items you need to buy. You can associate each one with a number: 1 - milk, 2 - bread, etc. When leaving the store, check the results. You went to buy 6 items - how many do you have in your bag?

Activate mental counting. Start counting in your head again. Set aside the calculator for larger numbers. Figure out in your mind how much money you need for the simplest purchases, divide the budget into expenses - and everything is in your mind.

Organize your life so you don’t feel constant panic. Such a simple thing - locks on doors that lock from the outside. And you won’t find yourself on the staircase with the only opportunity to enter the apartment by calling the Ministry of Emergency Situations (it seems that this costs several thousand rubles).

Before leaving your apartment or leaving your dacha, hang up a list of what you should have with you: money, a social card or travel card, glasses, medications that you always take, a pen. It is better to put your passport in a pocket that closes with a zipper. You should always keep your mobile phone in the same place. More than once I have seen people, especially women, in a panic looking for a ringing phone in their bag. If you don’t have a cell phone, you’ll need a notebook in case you have to call a machine.

Mnemonic devices. It’s better to remember a few phone numbers, say your husband’s work phone number, by heart; The numbers are now long - break them into parts - 8-495-926-15-33. Repeat to yourself and you will remember it. Use mnemonic devices: say, 926 - dad was born in 1926, 15 - a game of tag, 33 - a film with Leonov about 33 teeth - it’s long, but it helps.

Document storage. Typically, documents, which increase in number over the years, are kept in large boxes or old briefcases, and in search of one you go through the whole box. Use transparent thin folders with buttons: they are sold in office supply stores; Papers easily jump out of plastic “corner” folders and are inconvenient. It would be nice to write on each folder with a marker (a thick indelible pencil): “Apartment”, “Cottage”, “Inheritance”, “Taxes”, “Medicine” - this will make life much easier when searching for the required paper.

Don't write anything on scraps of paper unless you have a special board on which they can be easily attached. A regular alphabet book or diary will make your life easier. Write down recipes, birthdays, necessary things there, say: “In six months you need to go to the Tax Inspectorate,” etc.