Imagine
That! A Better Memory
Mental Technique
Helps People Remember
It is tough enough
to remember important daily tasks when you are young. But
for the elderly, forgetting something like a daily medication
can have dire consequences.
However, the simple
act of mentally picturing a future task is turning out to be
an inexpensive, easy, and highly effective way of making sure
important things get done, claims a new study in the journal
Psychology and Aging.
The three-minute technique,
called "implementation imagination," effectively boosted a daily
task rate by 50 percent in one group of seniors, researchers
report.
"You can make things
work better for yourself by doing this simple thing," says
Dr. Denise Park, psychologist and director of the Center for
Healthy Minds at the University of Illinois. "It's not hard
and it's actually sort of fun."
Everyone has done
it: You try and remember to pick up a quart of milk on the way
home from work - mentally repeating "get milk" over and over
in your mind. But on the drive home, that crucial stop at the
grocery store just does not happen.
According to Dr. Park,
the problem of forgetting important daily tasks only worsens
as you get older.
"As you age, your
ability to engage in what we call controlled or executive functions
declines," she explains.
Executive functions
involve deliberate, planned actions that are processed in the
brain's frontal cortex. Unfortunately, "the frontal cortex shrinks
with age, and these frontal processes become less efficient,"
Dr. Park says.
For the elderly, no
daily task is more important than taking medications that prevent
or fight serious illness. Yet study after study shows patient
compliance with physicians' orders remains troublingly low.
Dr. Jeffrey W. Elias,
chief of the Cognitive Aging Program at the National Institute
on Aging, describes medical non-compliance among the elderly
as "a big problem, with some estimates suggesting that just
40 percent of patients are compliant."
Identifying
Ways to Recall, Complete Tasks
Realizing that reminder
techniques that rely on the frontal cortex might not work, Dr.
Park's team looked for help elsewhere in the brain.
They focused on "automatic"
responses - mental activity triggered by visual cues in the
environment. Experts believe that while the frontal cortex deteriorates
with age, brain areas specific to automatic responses stay relatively
intact.
Testing this theory,
Dr. Park and colleague Dr. Linda Liu trained a group of 31 people
over 60 to track their blood sugar several times a day using
a standard testing device, much like diabetics must do, although
the study participants did not have diabetes.
Study participants
were put into three groups - a "deliberation" group talked over
the reasons why daily blood sugar testing was a good idea; a
second "rehearsal" group recited the instructions for using
the testing device; and a third "imagination" group spent three
minutes imagining themselves using the glucose monitor within
the home or work environment.
Drs. Park and Liu
then tracked blood sugar monitoring rates for the next three
weeks.
"We found that if
you imagined completing the desired act in great detail, you're
much more likely to do it," Dr. Park says.
Indeed, participants
in the imagination group remembered to take their blood sugar
readings at a rate 50 percent higher than participants in the
other two groups.
Visual
Cues Trigger Action
According to Dr. Park,
imagination works because it sets up visual environmental cues
that trigger action.
"For example, say
you know you're going to have orange juice every single day
with your breakfast before you test your glucose," she says.
"Suddenly, when you pick up the orange juice you go, 'Oh yeah,
I need to monitor my glucose.' This is a primed, automatic response
originating in a part of the brain that's more resistant to
aging," she says.
Dr. Elias agrees the
technique should raise compliance among patients, noting it
has the advantage of being cheap and easy.
"I don't think it's
a very difficult thing to get patients to do," he says. "A physician
could write down the instructions by hand for them to take home."
Of course, the young
and middle-aged can benefit, too. Other studies suggest the
technique helps dieters stick to healthy eating, assists women
in remembering to go for breast exams, and increases the use
of medic-alert bracelets by those who need them.
Dr. Park even uses
it to help her through her workday.
"Often, if I have
a paper to write, I'll imagine, 'OK, you're going to get home,
go up to your office, sit down, get your Diet Coke, read these
articles, and then start writing.' And it works. It's so effortless,
and it makes it much more likely to happen."
Always consult your
physician for more information.
Online
Resources
(Our Organization
is not responsible for the content of Internet sites.)
American
Psychological Association
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National
Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
National
Institutes of Health (NIH)
National
Institute on Aging
National
Library of Medicine
US
Department of Heath and Human Services |
July 2004
Imagine
That! A Better Memory
Identifying
Ways to Recall, Complete Tasks
Visual
Cues Trigger Action
The
Brain Plays a Role in the Immune Function
Creating
Vivid Memories
Online
Resources
The
Brain Plays a Role in the Immune Function
Researchers have long
known that different sides of the brain control language versus
visual and spatial functions.
Now, it appears that
different brain hemispheres have differing effects on the immune
system. When right-handed people had a portion of the left side
of the brain removed, they became more susceptible to infection,
a new study in Annals of Neurology says.
This finding dovetails
with previous research that demonstrated that people who had
strokes on the left side of the brain also tended to develop
more infections.
"It means that there
are probably differences in the ways different sides of the
brain modulate the immune system," says Dr. Kimford Meador,
lead author of the study.
"It's similar to the
different roles the two sides have in emotions," adds Dr. Meador,
chairman of neurology at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington,
D.C.
Little is known about
the asymmetries of the human brain. Animal studies, however,
have shown a connection between different sides of the brain
and immune responses.
Dr. Meador and his
colleagues examined the immune systems of 22 people with epilepsy
before and after they underwent surgery to remove small pieces
of their brain in an effort to control their seizures.
Patients who had surgery
on the left side of their brains demonstrated a decrease in
immune function, namely a reduction in the lymphocytes and T-cells
that fight infection.
Patients who had surgery
on the right side of their brains had increased levels of lymphocytes
and T cells. The changes were not related to alterations in
mood, stress, or cortisol hormone levels, the researchers say.
"T-cells and lymphocytes
had this diametrically opposite effect," Dr. Meador says.
This finding may only
be true for right-handed people, however, because the study
did not include enough left-handed and ambidextrous people to
assess the effect in them.
Histamine skin testing
revealed similar asymmetries. People who had had surgery on
the right side of their brain had a bigger allergic reaction
on the left arm.
A few previous studies
have suggested that people who have strokes on the left side
of their brain have lower T-cell levels. The new finding suggests
these patients may need to be watched more closely for signs
of infection, Dr. Meador says.
The next step for
researchers, Dr. Meador says, is to reproduce these results
in a larger number of people and to look at different components
of immune system functioning.
They also need to
discover the mechanism behind these differences. "Understanding
that might lead to new ways to approach treatments for different
types of immune disorders," Dr. Meador says.
Always consult your
physician for more information.
Creating
Vivid Memories
Even after you have returned
from a vacation, you may still fully recall the sights, sounds,
tastes, and smells of some of its particularly memorable moments.
For years, neurobiologists
have tried to understand the brain functions that enable this
type of detailed recollection.
A study in the medical
journal Neuron confirms previous models of
memory recall that found sensory-specific components of a memory
are preserved in sensory-related areas of the brain.
The hippocampus (a part
of the brain that has a central role in memory processes)
can draw on this stored sensory information to create vivid
recall.
For their study, the
researchers mapped brain activity in human volunteers who sampled
different odors and viewed pictures of various objects.
Always consult your
physician for more information. |
