Has your memory failed you today, such as
struggling to recall a word that's "on the tip of your tongue?" If
so, you're not alone.
New
University of Michigan research indicates that "tip-of-the-tongue"
errors happen often to adults ages 65-92. In a study of 105 healthy,
highly-educated older
adults, 61 percent reported this memory mishap.
The
study's participants completed a checklist of the memory errors made in the
last 24 hours, as well as several other tests. About half of them reported
making other errors that may be related to absent-mindedness, such as having to
re-read a sentence because they forgot what it said, or forgetting where they
placed an item.
The
findings, which appear in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and
Cognition, may help brain-training programs target the memory problems people
experience in daily life.
"Right
now, many training programs focus on the age differences in memory and thinking
that we see in laboratory studies," said Cindy Lustig, U-M psychology professor and
the study's senior author. "However, those may not translate to the
performance failures that are most common in everyday life."
When
people are tested in the lab and have nothing to rely on but their own
memories, young
adults typically do better than older adults, she said. However, when
these studies are conducted in real-world settings, older adults sometimes
outperform young adults at things like remembering appointments because the
former are likely to use memory supports such as calendars, lists and alarms.
"When
we looked at how people performed on standard laboratory tests, we
found the usual age differences," she said. "People in their 80s and
90s performed worse than those in their 60s and early 70s."
In
contrast, no increase in daily memory errors was found based on age.
Meanwhile,
researchers hope that a better understanding of the errors people are still
making can improve training program efforts.
"We
wanted to identify which errors still occur despite changes people might be
making in their environment and routine," Lustig said. "That's where
it may be especially important to change the person."
Lustig
cautioned that an elderly person occasionally forgetting a name does not mean
he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease or other dementias.
"Everybody
forgets," she said. "However, our findings suggest that certain types
of memory errors may be especially important to monitor for increases, which
then should be discussed with a clinician."
Lustig
said future research should identify how people change their lives to avoid
errors. If people restrict their activities to avoid memory errors, it could
affect their independence.
Provided
by University of
Michigan
No comments:
Post a Comment