BR A I N
GAMES
H
ave you ever been talking to someone and all
of a sudden you can’t think of the word you
want to use, or you can’t remember someone’s
name? Did you think, “oh my gosh, I hope I’m not
getting forgetful, or even have dementia!”?
The brain is amazing. The one thing it is not is a
library. I remember hearing a geriatrician speak one
time about this. He offered the following analogy:
There is no Dewey Decimal System in our brain.
When our brain hears a piece of information, it
stores it anywhere it can find a place. As we age our
brain becomes increasingly filled with all sorts of
information, helpful or not. When we try to retrieve
that information, it just isn’t there. Later—and it
can be even hours or days—that word or name you
were trying to remember suddenly pops into your
mind. And you didn’t think you were still trying. It
just took longer to find! All of that time your brain
was searching.
Unfortunately, there are many seniors who have
Alzheimer’s and other related dementias. Sometimes it comes on slowly, other times more rapidly.
It is such a challenge because often the people we
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