Everyone forget things from time to time. As we age, the frequency of the occurrence of forgetfulness or memory lapses increases. Age-related memory loss is part of the normal aging process. How much memory loss is too much which may show the early signs and symptoms of age-related memory problems (diseases) such as Alzheimer’s or other memory impairments? The key issue is whether such memory lapses or further cognitive changes are extreme and persistent enough to interfere with the daily life with frustration.
Harvard University Health Publication (www.health.harvard.edu) has a publication which identified 7 types of forgetfulness (memory lapses) that people could experience at any age. Some of them become more pronounce with age. “The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers
- transience: the tendency to forget facts or events over time
- negative: appear to be an indicator of deteriorated episodic memory (one of the declarative memory) (see “Classification of Memory – Types of Memory”)
- positive: brain scientists believe that transience, on the other hand, clears the brain of unused memory information, making room for new or more useful information to be stored and processed. This property of the memory system is also known as “fade out” which is normal at all ages.
- absentmindedness: it is very easy to forget what is perceived if attention or focus is lacking. This applies to retrospective (perception or past experience) and prospective memories such as forget a scheduled event.
- blocking: refer to the temporary or sudden inability to recall a memory (the temporary inaccessibility of stored information. e.g. a name, a place)
- misattribution: remember some facts partially and forget the details
- suggestibility: this memory failure refer to the fact that people sometimes accepts untrue suggestions from others as the recollection of memory when they actually are not elements of past experience.
- bias: an individual’s current feelings or views world distort memory of past facts or events.
- persistence: refer to the symptom of persistently recalling unwanted memory (disturbing information or traumatic experience)
- scrambling: the individual remembers most of the event or chunks of information but forgets the important details
- muddled multitasking (demitasking): the decreased ability to do several tasks at the same time because multitasking make the focus difficult and less efficient.
What types of forgetfulness (memory lapses) or memory failure (memory loss) are most commonly seen with aging people?
Memory blocks are more common with age. Elders are having more trouble remembering people’s names. Misattribution is also more sever with aging population. Elders are less efficient in concentrating and processing information; and usually acquiring fewer details. As we age, the brain has to exert more effort to maintain focus, the ability on multitasking reduces. Further, it takes longer time to resume an task after an interruption. Short-term memory loss and encoding failure are also more common with aging people in that information either can not get to the next stage of memorization process – long-term memory or very easily lost from the short-term storage. Interference problem is very common with aging people, usually associated with impairing visuospatial working memory functionality.
