MAKING MEMORIES

HOW WE REMEMBER... AND HOW NOT TO FORGET

- Beth Weinhouse

The last time my husband and I went out for an elegant restaurant dinner, the server came to our table and began to recite a long list of specials, with detailed descriptions of how the dishes were made and where the ingredients had been sourced. Her recitation went on and on, and as she spoke I became almost more interested in how she could remember all those descriptions than I was in thinking about the food. Meanwhile, I couldn't remember where I'd put my keys before we left for the restaurant.

The good news is that not remembering where you put your keys is generally not a sign of incipient dementia. And on the flip side, being able to remember a long list of restaurant specials isn't necessarily a sign of extraordinary mental ability, either. Memory is far more complicated than these two examples could ever show, and there's a wide range of what's considered normal.

While most of us are terrified about developing dementia, fewer than 10% of adults age 65 and older will wind up with dementia such as Alzheimer's.

"Developing a neurodegenerative condition like Alzheimer's is not what we consider healthy, normal aging," says Joel Salinas, MD, behavioral neurologist at NYU Langone Health and chief medical officer of Isaac Health, a memory clinic. While some memory loss is normal as people age, he says, "It's not the kind of decline that interferes with the ability to live your life." And, he adds, "There are areas that actually improve with age. Vocabulary is one. The other is theory of mind and perspective taking... what some people call wisdom."