Who has never omitted their keys, a birthday or the first name of a loved one? This is not alarming since it is mainly due to the aging. When you’re driving and you forget your destination, or worse, when you no longer know who you are, that’s serious. People can also suffer from milder cognitive impairment. Without prompt treatment, they can affect the faculties of language, thought, and even decision-making.
Oliver Baumann and Cindy Jones, professors at Bond University in Australia, recently published in the site The conversation about memory lapses. While normalizing certain omissions, they alarmed on a clue to identify severe cognitive impairment : often lose his way.
People suffering from this type of mild illness would risk having more and more difficulties in their daily life. Moreover, about 1 in 10 patients could develop a form of dementia, the best known of which isAlzheimer.
Forgetting, a natural process
Omitting some details is normal for the brain. The latter removes from its storage what it deems less important and this helps it to function better. This is the reason why abstract data such as numbers or formulas are easily forgotten. This is because recording too much information at once is harmful for us, since it could slow down our thinking ability.
Everything we memorize is found in the form of electrical signals transmitted between neurons. With age, neuronal connections tend to weaken, which explains the banal omissions of everyday life. Add to this the stressto the fatigueor the fact that you are distracted, and you will have all the ingredients concerning your oversights.
The loss of spatial memory, a worrying indicator of degeneration
The the elderly should pay attention to mild cognitive impairment. Without drastically affecting their daily lives, these can be a handicap. Their faculties of judgment, or language and reflection will be affected. Eventually, scientists believe that 15% of them are at risk of dementia, includingAlzheimer.
Among the most obvious signs to detect a alienation precociously, there is the fact of losing one’s way. This is what results from studies by magnetic imaging showing that the first areas to be affected by this disease are the memories of our spatial environment. Consider consulting a specialist if you tend to get lost along the way.
It is therefore necessary to stimulate the memorization navigation through various orientation tests. In this sense, the authors of this study rely, among other things, on exercises consisting in visualize houses or neighborhoods. The subjects have 5 minutes to memorize them, then to differentiate them from other dwellings which will be submitted to them.
If these tests are not 100% sure, they allow early identification of the signs of brain degeneration. Ultimately, these results should help experts find treatments for age-related diseases.
SOURCE : SCIENCEALERT