Memory fitness
Dr. Paul Milberg, a plastic surgeon with a thriving practice, has trouble remembering patients’ names when he encounters them outside his Tarzana office.
Julie Engelman, a science teacher, occasionally finds herself wondering what it was that she wanted in the kitchen.
Candy Mintz, a mother of two and part-time business manager, believes she’s single-handedly boosted the Post-It note industry; her little yellow reminders dot the bathroom mirror, kitchen cabinet, front door and her car’s steering wheel.
Mintz, Engelman and Milberg were classmates at a UCLA memory training course intended for baby boomers who have begun to slip with names, shopping lists and the titles of the books atop their night tables. At a recent class, several people hadn’t done homework. “I, um, forgot,” one woman blushed. “I even forgot I had class tonight.”
Three decades after baby boomers launched a physical fitness craze, the specter of forgetfulness has led to another type of training: mental aerobics. Increasing evidence suggests that mental exercise -- anything from crossword puzzles to learning another language -- helps stave off mental decline. It’s the use-it-or-lose-it approach.
The new evidence, coupled with the graying of 79 million baby boomers, has led to a proliferation of books, software, videos and brain-training programs nationwide. It’s “Brain Upgrade” at New York’s Open Center. Or “Boost Your Memory Power” at Pasadena City College. Or “Powerful Memory” at the Memory Training Institute in Connecticut.
In part, these products and courses prey upon everyone’s worry that their minds are not as sharp as they once were.
“You exercise and eat well; there’s a fear that your brain is not going to keep up with the rest of you,” said Lawrence Katz, professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center and an author of “Keep Your Brain Alive.” “More and more emphasis is placed on keeping your body young and your brain younger.”
In November, the National Institute on Aging published its findings showing that mental training improved memory, concentration and problem-solving skills among adults 65 years and older. The study, the largest of its kind, looked at 2,802 individuals, assessing them after a five-week course.
One group of participants got no training at all, without substantial change. Those who received training in memory, problem solving and information processing showed significant improvements, which persisted for at least two years after the program. Of those in the memory group, 26% improved.
Kathy Koepke, an NIA social science analyst, is quick to caution that the results were detected in a laboratory and wouldn’t necessarily translate to everyday life. Nonetheless, the study helped bolster the brain-training movement. “Everyone wants to find a way to stay cognitively intact as long as possible,” said Koepke, who takes vitamin E and drinks soy milk as health and anti-aging measures.
The interest in battling age is, well, age-old, Koepke said. Aristotle had what Koepke politely calls “cognitive memory challenges.” What’s new are the sense of urgency and flurry of attention. Although brain training has been around for more than a decade, more and more participants are individuals in their 40s and 50s with increasingly mainstream professions, said Paula Oleska, president of Natural Intelligence Systems, who teaches “Brain Gym” and “Brain Upgrade” in New York.
On average, individuals begin forgetting at age 35, said Fred Chernow, author of “The Sharper Mind” and retired professor of psychology at New York’s St. John’s University. “You start forgetting -- misplacing car keys or glasses,” he said. “It progresses to ‘where did I park the car?’ ”
Chernow maintains that simple exercises, such as memorizing license plates of surrounding cars when you’re stuck in traffic, help ward off mental flab. “People who do mental exercises really stay sharper longer than couch potatoes velcroed to their sofa.”
Explanations for why we forget are as numerous as the techniques for aiding memory.
Chernow, who is 70, says it’s information overload, that we must remember more than ever before. When Chernow started working, he was expected to know his name, address and phone number. Today, people also must know various passwords, Social Security and personal identification numbers, fax and cell phone numbers.
Others say Americans sleep less and experience more stress -- both factors affecting memory.
Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, says the juggling of various tasks -- an attribute of many individuals’ everyday lives -- can prompt memory overload. “We end up multi-tasking, and that’s the biggest reason we can’t remember,” said Small, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and author of “The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain Young.” His research provides the basis for UCLA’s memory courses.
(Small takes vitamin E, vitamin C and omega-3 fat supplements daily and strives for a diet rich in omega 3 fats, such as fish and olive oil, and antioxidants, such as berries and broccoli. He also tackles crossword puzzles and works out daily.)
For some, memory classes have brought peace of mind. Before Leta Nadler, 56, graduated from the UCLA memory class, she found herself haunted by the fact that her mother, who recently died at age 92, had Alzheimer’s disease.
“What would my mother have noticed first changed?” the Pacific Palisades resident wondered. “When she was 56, how was she?”
After completing the course, Nadler, a building manager, now remembers people whose names had always eluded her by quickly associating them with something else. And she no longer worries about her own lapses. She does, however, wonder about the lasting effects of the course. “A lot of us who took the class felt our skills were definitely better,” Nadler said. “Then the question was where would we be a year from now?”
At the Stephen S. Wise Temple, a group of 12 meets each Thursday evening for two hours.
It wasn’t one incident that prompted Julie Engelman, 55, to enroll in the UCLA course but a series of episodes of forgetfulness that increased over a decade. Like the time she found herself driving down Ventura Boulevard wondering, “Where was I going?” Or the constant hunt for her glasses, which she now wears on a chain around her neck.
When Engelman was younger, she never kept a calendar. Now she uses one, recognizing that navigating her daily life without one would be like deciphering astrophysics without a textbook.
Among the first to arrive at a recent class, Engelman groaned as classmates filed in. “I can’t remember their names,” said the Tarzana resident.
On this particular evening, the two instructors explained to the group the importance of creating associations and an image as a memory aid. The more ridiculous the image, the more likely the individual will remember, said instructor Norman Miller, a volunteer. As much as possible, use all senses to create these associations, he said.
As an exercise, the class was asked to remember five pairs of unrelated words. Trying to remember “sweater and ring,” one person offered, “Don’t snag the ring on the sweater.” Another suggested a play on an old advertising campaign for a detergent, “Ring around the sweater.” A third came up with: “Don’t wring out the sweater.”
When the group got to “dishwashing detergent and peaches,” Dr. Paul Milberg was flummoxed. A classmate suggested peach-scented dishwashing detergent, and Milberg was impressed.
More and more, the 58-year-old Milberg finds his memory is selective. He can remember where he went on every vacation since he was a child, but he goes to the market and forgets his list and what he needed. He can answer most questions on the television show “Jeopardy,” but he forgets the names of the eight new patients he saw two days after meeting them.
“As you approach your late 50s, you have to be truthful to yourself and realize you are slowing down, not just in your energy but in your mental capacity,” said Milberg. “I want to fight that loss and do what I can to retain my sharpness.”
In the class, Milberg asked how to cope with foreign names. How do you handle, say, “The Gulag Archipelago”? Or author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn?
The answer: Break it down into smaller recognizable words and associations.
Still, creating associations can backfire. For instance, you meet a woman and note that her last name is also the name of a Park Avenue hotel. Later, you could be left wondering if her name is Waldorf or Astoria.
The exercises became more difficult as the instructors urged the class to create visual images.
The task: Remember that you need to buy bananas, reserve a clown for a child’s birthday party and wash a child’s favorite elephant T-shirt.
Candy Mintz, 50, quickly came up with a mental picture: A clown riding an elephant with bananas coming out of each ear.
“These people are doing drugs,” a class member whispered to his wife.
Mintz, of Beverly Hills, did not hear that retort. But she is accustomed to skeptics. Her husband often chides her for depending so heavily on Post-It notes: Why not use her Palm Pilot? Mintz, however, does not find the high-tech hand-held device nearly as handy as a small note scribbled on a tiny piece of paper. And her hope is that the memory class will enable her to diminish her trail of Post-Its. When she recently went to her son’s new school, she introduced herself to the security guard and asked his name. But she promptly forgot it, distracted by directions she was trying to follow. As she left the campus, she asked the guard’s name again. This time, she made a connection that it rhymed with her own. The exercise required her to focus on a person whom she ordinarily would zip past.
“You have to stop for a millisecond,” said Mintz, “and usually we walk on through life.”
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Keeping your memory sharp
* When you meet someone, imagine the person’s name written on his or her forehead, says Fred Chernow, author of “The Sharper Mind.” This way, you hear the name as well as see it, doubling the likelihood that you’ll remember it.
* Talk aloud when you put down your keys or glasses, for instance, and want to remember the location. Tell yourself exactly where you put them. Later, you’ll remember hearing your voice.
* Exercise your brain at what would otherwise be idle moments. Memorize the license plates of surrounding cars when stuck in traffic. Or start at 100 and count back by 7.
* Vary your mental workout. Unfamiliar situations and challenges stimulate the brain. Try tying your shoe laces or brushing your teeth with your left hand if you’re right-handed.
* Actively observe what you want to learn. Create a mental snapshot of the information that you wish to remember, adding details to give this image personal meaning. Link your mental snapshots together.
* Minimize stress to maximize memory: Prepare ahead, balance work and leisure, set realistic expectations and take relaxation breaks at regular intervals.
* Stimulate your brain to keep it fit: Do crosswords and other kinds of puzzles, read or challenge yourself intellectually.
* Start a healthful brain diet: Drink six glasses of water each day, eat low-fat foods and plenty of fruits and vegetables, avoid fried foods and take the vitamins E and C. If you smoke, quit. If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation.
Sources: Fred Chernow, author and educator; Dr. Gary Small, director, UCLA Center on Aging
