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| Published 23 March 2021 |
I had the opportunity to read Lisa Genova's novel Still Alice prior to the release of the film based on her fictional account of a woman living with early onset Alzheimer's. Because she has a doctorate in neuroscience, Genova's novel was informed by science.
I make an effort to read books about cognition -- fiction and nonfiction, expected age-related changes in cognition and disease-related changes. My octogenarian step-father is living with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, which includes dementia, and my octogenarian step-mother is living with dementia (vascular? Alzheimer's? mixed?). Consequently, when I saw that Genova wrote a nonfiction book about memory--Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting (2021)-- and then bought the hardback so that I could reread parts if not all of her description of how human memory works.
Even though I have read several fiction and nonfiction books about cognition (see the links below), I learned new things by reading Genova's book. She talks to the lay reader about attention, working memory, short-term memory, long-term memory and different types of memory such as "muscle memory" or kinesthetic memory (such as riding a bike). Part of her book does point out that there is a difference between age-related cognitive slowing and diseased changes due to Alzheimer's or other memory-damaging problems.
She also talks about how people need to forget most of what they experience or they would suffer from cognitive overload and be unable to filter or function. We subconsciously and consciously select to remember some things and by inattention forget most of what we experience. That being said, she does describe how to enhance memory within the scope of human ability.
By reading about the functions and dysfunctions of the memory, I got a lot of new understanding, a greater awareness about why I have been adding more tricks and tips to bolster my own memory (such as writing down more things than I did in my 20s and 30s and setting reminders on my phone).
And despite my overt efforts since 2000 to improve my midlife brain, Genova gave me more ideas on how I can bolster my memory even more.
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