by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: September 21, 2009   Last Updated: January 06, 2012

Brain cells age along with the rest of the body and this affects memory. Yet, to some degree, proper maintenance and exercise of the brain cells by reading and problem solving and good physical health slows the rate of memory loss. Senior citizens worry over this lack of quick recall and this only aggravates the problem compounds the problem.

A far healthier attitude is to accept it as a part of the aging process and to deal with it to the best of your ability. Although there aren’t any studies being done  that show worry accelerates the approaching problem of

Alzheimer's, it does. It makes sense that anything stressful adds to this possibility. Aside from that one reality, memory loss is something all older folks must deal with.

Absentmindedness is compounded with old age. Since the body works as a whole whatever illnesses affecting one part of the body affects all. The brain, as one example out of many, when deprived of proper nourishment for whatever reason, functions less accurately than when it is in good health. And too, the brain, the organ that is responsible for sending important messages to the rest of the body via the nervous system, is understandably not as efficient as it once was now that it is old. It need not be!

The mind needs to be working as efficiently as possible at each stage during aging. It is, like the rest of the body, slowly closing up shop and preparing for an eventual shutdown. It has over many decades, filed and assorted and discarded memories and now hopefully retains only those that it needs. Nature has provided well for the healthy older brain. What is not necessary for retention is stored so far back in memory it often takes powerful stimuli to recall certain events. Yet, up to a point, this is normal.

Older brains are not as agile at recall as younger brains. An analogy, an older computer takes more time to bring up wanted information when researching, than does a newer more efficient computer. Yet, brains at any age are not computers. Computers simulate the human brain and are at the mercy of its programmers. This is the reasoning behind the aggravating changes. The elderly get used to doing things one way, and a computer glitch switches things around. Not so with human brains.

People at birth are born with blueprints - DNA - that program the functions of its organs. These are dependent on what's available in the inherited genes. Some of these are more efficient than others. And even the more efficient memory systems

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