Medical Review: 2003
Contributing Author: Cherri Straus, MPH
How often has this happened to you: You enter a room
and forget why you wanted to go into that room, or you cannot find
your keys or your glasses? You become frightened that you are losing
your memory. But in fact, everyone, in any age group, has trouble
remembering things from time to time.
Memory is critical to our daily lives. Memory is
the capacity to retain information about past events, and helps
us plan future events. We should be aware of how our memories work,
what changes occur in memory over time, and how we can improve
our memories as we get older. Fortunately, most changes in memory
are normal changes of the aging process, or may be caused by temporary
or treatable problems.
Our brains are amazing organs and the part of our
brain that controls memory is a complicated system of numerous
functions. Our brains can stay strong and healthy well into old
age. But as people get older, memory changes bring on the concern
that something may be “wrong” with your mind.
It is important to understand that there are memory problems in all
age groups. Children and teenagers seem to forget everything they’ve
just been told. Many adults are so busy and have so many distractions,
they just don’t have time to remember everything. Seniors are
more likely to have difficulty remembering names, items on a list,
or where they put things.
In general, no one has a “perfect“ memory.
Most of what happens around us is forgotten because there’s
no need to remember everything. We are bombarded with information
all the time and the memory processes only the information that
we need to remember.
