Problems with short memory in an adult. Memory impairment

Memory problems are thought to occur in older people. But in fact, every 4 inhabitants of the planet have this problem. Don't worry if you forgot the address or name of someone you don't know. Such forgetfulness refers to selectivity of memory. The brain doesn't remember what you don't try to remember.

But when you are unable to remember the events of yesterday or cannot remember what is happening right now, this is a serious problem. With such symptoms, you should immediately consult a doctor.

Memory problems modern man can occur at any age. The reasons are varied, ranging from lack of constant training to serious problems with health.

The most obvious reasons for deterioration or even total loss memory are: brain injury, stroke (when blood circulation to the brain is impaired), brain tumor, metastases, infectious diseases(meningitis, encephalitis).

Also, memory deterioration can be a “warning” from the body about approaching multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease. Be that as it may, it is best to contact a specialist to clarify the situation.

The next reason for memory deterioration can be associated with certain diseases internal organs. Such diseases include:

• Diseases of the cardiovascular system when proper blood supply is disrupted.
• Some kidney diseases (scientists have proven the relationship between kidney problems and verbal memory).
• Metabolic disease.

Adverse environmental factors also negatively affect memory:

• a lack of necessary vitamins. For high-quality brain and memory function it is necessary useful material, including vital B vitamins.
• Enormous information overload. IN modern world our brain is bombarded with chaotic and often unnecessary information.
• Stress blocks processes related directly to memory.
• Lack of quality sleep. During sleep, the entire body and the brain are restored.
• Not healthy food, including tonic drinks.

Another reason scientists call is constant intoxication of the body. Here's what can poison our brain:

• Smoking. The substances that enter our body with smoke practically “corrode” the brain, and as a result, memory is significantly reduced.
• Alcohol and drug use greatly damage the serotonin system in the brain.
• Poisoning with heavy metals such as lead, mercury.
• Use of certain groups of medications: antidepressants, antihistamines, anticholinergics.

The last reason is age-related changes in the centers of the brain. Walls blood vessels in the brain with age they lose their elasticity and can “crack”, causing pinpoint hemorrhages in different parts of the brain. Also "age-related diseases" such as multiple sclerosis, also provoke memory loss.

Prevention of memory impairment, attention training

How can you protect yourself from such a “trouble” as memory loss? If the deterioration in memory quality is not associated with any serious health problems, then you can try several working ways to “get your memory back.” Quality sleep, healthy food and refusal bad habits will be the first step to restore memory.

Complaints about memory are not always associated with any disorders. Large flows of information received by a person are not taken seriously and are remembered fleetingly. As they say, “one listens with half an ear.” The brain considers such information unimportant and discards it as unnecessary. Therefore, in this case there is no need to worry.

As for inattention, its manifestations are characteristic of older people, but nowadays they also occur in fairly young people. When fighting inattention syndrome, you need to work on yourself, focus on important details, learn to count in your head, write down events in a diary.

Daily training in the form of mastering new information, analyzing the material studied and the surrounding world will force the brain to work, just as an athlete forces his muscles to work through constant training.

Studying foreign languages, learning new songs, “cramming” poems and works of literature, studying the cultures of the peoples of the world and much more will restore tone to the brain. Everything new and interesting, if you show persistence and patience, will certainly begin to gradually be stored in memory, and over time, the “trained” brain will begin to remember more and more information.

Memory deterioration threatens not only older people: now this problem is very familiar to people of working age, students, and even schoolchildren.

Of course, much more often memory deteriorates among working people: in the modern frantic pace of life, they need to “keep so much in their heads” that even diaries and calendars, unfortunately, do not always help - they can also forget to record the necessary information on time. Why does memory deteriorate, and how to deal with this problem? It is this issue that we will touch upon with you today, we will tell you the main reasons for this problem and what needs to be done if your memory deteriorates.

There are different types of memory, but we are talking about neurological, or neural memory: thanks to it we remember events and other information. Central nervous system stores not only information that can be expressed in words, but also our emotions and impressions. However, we are usually worried that we cannot always remember phone numbers and dates, first and last names, and sometimes we forget to do what is necessary: ​​if memory deteriorates all the time, you can even forget about a business meeting or something else. something very important in life.

Why

First, you should find out why memory deteriorates, what are the main causes of this disease. Memory impairment can be caused by any factors, including serious illnesses. In these cases, treatment methods are determined by a doctor - a neurologist, psychiatrist or other specialist. If we are not talking about serious failures or amnesia, complete or partial, but about an incomprehensible deterioration of memory, which has not failed before, then it is quite possible to cope with this on your own.

For most people, memory deteriorates for the same reasons.

First of all, this psychoemotional disorders: stress, anxiety, and then depression - a person is in a state almost all the time chronic fatigue, and cannot get out of it. After 40 years, this is especially dangerous: memory weakens quickly, it causes anxiety, and everything gets worse.

What to do?

Even if you cannot remember something, it is better to remain calm: proper rest and positive emotions will help improve the situation. While relaxing, you can decide logic problems and puzzles, read interesting books, but watching endless TV series and talk shows is unlikely to help get rid of psycho-emotional stress.

Constant haste and the habit of doing everything in a hurry lead to the fact that absent-mindedness and forgetfulness become the norm. When a person is in a hurry, he does not notice what exactly he is doing, and this again becomes a reason for stress: everyone knows the feverish state like “did I turn off the stove”, or “did I close the garage”, because most of our daily activities are carried out “on automatic." This “automatic machine” must be turned off: learn to do everything consciously, and do not divide things into small and important ones - watch yourself, every action you take, and gradually your memory will begin to improve.

Active and healthy image life - excellent remedy to restore and preserve memory. Not everyone has time to do fitness or just go to the gym, but remembering your daily routine or going for walks fresh air everyone can. Try to walk whenever possible, and forget about alcohol and cigarettes: they impair the ability to absorb information and remember words and images.

Only healthy food

Many experts talk about metabolic disorders, lack of nicotine and folic acid, as well as other B vitamins. This cause of memory impairment is the most common, and it is related to nutrition. Most working people eat “as they have to” - not according to the principle of usefulness, but according to a different principle - so that it is fast, satisfying and tasty.

We will not describe the harm from fast food now - a lot has been said about this, but let us remind you which products should be present in the diet at all times. Fortunately, there are many such products, and they can provide brain cells with normal work you can do it without any problems - of course, and you will have to give up many bad habits. But health is more important, isn't it?

For example, regular apples, if eaten regularly, will help get rid of iron deficiency and protect brain cells from the “attacks” of free radicals: the substances contained in apples help the body produce more neurotransmitters necessary for memory restoration, and also prevent the accumulation of cholesterol in the blood. It is known that it is precisely with an excess of cholesterol that deposits and plaques form in the vessels - the blood supply to the brain deteriorates, and memory weakens.

Polyunsaturated fatty acid- this is something without which normal activity of brain cells is simply impossible. They are found in fatty sea fish, and you don’t need to buy expensive fish - ordinary herring will do; V vegetable oils first pressing, fresh nuts and seeds, leafy vegetables, sprouted wheat. Among leafy vegetables, spinach stands out for its usefulness - it’s a pity that this plant is not very popular in our country. Eating spinach improves brain function and increases the resistance of its blood vessels to damage.

Carbohydrates are also necessary - not simple ones, which are rich in white bread and sweets, but complex ones, from which the brain will receive nutrients- These are cereals, legumes and grains, vegetables and unsweetened fruits, durum wheat pasta and baked potatoes.

Nuts and dried fruits are very useful for nourishing the brain.

I would also like to note such a product as Jerusalem artichoke - it is rich in antioxidants, carbohydrates and B vitamins. If you grow and prepare it correctly, dishes made from it will taste very pleasant.

Hemp products are also interesting - for example, hemp oil and hemp porridge. Now the value of this plant, which has undeservedly become the talk of the town, is gradually being remembered: doctors of the past treated many diseases with cannabis, including epilepsy, migraines, multiple sclerosis, depression and sleep disorders. Hemp oil can be bought at a pharmacy or store healthy eating, and add it to dishes like any other.

Among the seasonings, if your memory is deteriorating, you should choose rosemary and sage: the first reduces brain fatigue and improves the ability to remember, and the second restores the balance of essential nutrients in the brain. chemical substances. Aroma oils obtained from these plants will also help.

Of the drinks, the easiest choice for improving memory would be natural green and black tea in reasonable quantities, and regular still water– mineral, spring, artesian – in general, pure.

After all, brain tissue contains about 80% water, and its dehydration leads to the inability to store and reproduce information.

Memory training

Experts noted that people complaining of bad memory, concentration is almost always impaired. Any information or event is perceived as if in passing, and changing this perception is not easy.

So what can you do if your memory is deteriorating? Constant training of memory and attention helps here. For example, in the books of the American neuroscientist L. Katz, unusual methods are given that activate these processes: they “force” different parts of the brain to act and create new neural connections.

The simplest exercises: learning to walk around the apartment with eyes closed, comb your hair and brush your teeth with your left hand (for left-handed people - with your right hand), master the Braille reading system, start learning new language etc. In general, try to do the most ordinary tasks in unusual ways. This will make it possible to use other segments of the brain, which will lead to a noticeable improvement in memory.

And know the main thing that we are best protected from any problems and troubles in any situation by a healthy lifestyle and positive thinking. And this, of course, is always worth remembering!

Memory loss in older people: how to treat, what to do if symptoms of the disease appear - the topic of our next article about the health of people who have crossed the “autumn” threshold.

Decrease in critical mental function– this is a real tragedy for a person, leading to the destruction of personality, deterioration in the quality of life, and disruption of social ties.

Age and forgetfulness

Poor, “leaky” memory is a fairly common phenomenon in people of mature age. Age-related diseases occupy the first position among the pressing health problems of the nation of any country. And the most offensive thing is that they fall on a person during the “golden” period - freedom from work, the opportunity to relax, travel, communicate with nature. Even schoolchildren know if their grandparents experience memory loss, what the disease is called. Of course, we are talking about amnesia.

Medicine has long established that emotional experiences (both joyful and painful), exciting events are remembered better than routine events. Senile amnesia - the loss of the cognitive ability to retain (save) knowledge or recreate previously accumulated material - affects more than 15% of people who have crossed the seventy-year mark.

Age-related forgetfulness is associated with the accumulation of “bad” cholesterol on the walls of blood vessels of our “control center” - the brain, destructive processes that occur directly in the brain tissue. Many have noticed that often old people can talk with pleasure and in great detail about the bright events of their childhood and completely forget about what they did more recently.

Causes of memory loss in older people

In the same time pathological processes V old age are not always a consequence of passing years. Their occurrence can be influenced by heredity, lifestyle, past illnesses, including and in early age. Changes cognitive abilities can be temporary or permanent.

With the first factors of the degenerative process, it is necessary to take into account that if short-term memory loss occurs, the reasons may be caused by:

• Ailments that occur and are not always noticeable to others, including insomnia, fainting, and dizziness.
• Various damages.
• Infections (tertiary syphilis, tuberculosis, etc.).
• Consequences of taking chemicals. It has been established that Kemadrin, Timolol, Procyclidine, Disipal, etc. have a negative effect on the brain.
• Abuse of strong drinks.
• Taking drugs.

Memory counts the most important function human brain, which affects cognitive processes, mental activity, thinking ability. This function is a complex process that may be subject to change for certain reasons.

Moreover, disorders can occur at any age; they often occur in young people. Our article will tell you why memory and attention deterioration occurs and how to deal with these changes.

Causes and characteristics of disorders at different ages

Such problems can manifest themselves in the form of loss short term memory. They can significantly change the quality of life. There are many reasons for this, among which the leading place is given to:

Disorders in young people

There are cases when absent-mindedness manifests itself in people aged 18-30 years. They often forget what day of the week it is, where they put the keys to the apartment. This forgetfulness is mainly caused by reasons such as leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Often, after a stormy evening, young people do not remember what happened yesterday.

Particular aspects of brain disorder that lead to forgetfulness occur due to all kinds of gadgets. Multitasking is essential for brain health, and electronics do it. If there is no switching of attention to different types activity, short-term memory is impaired.

Often inattention occurs due to addiction Keep your phones nearby while you sleep. They release harmful electromagnetic fields, which destroy various functions of the brain. It happens to people psychological disorder, leading to emotional imbalance, they become more absent-minded and forgetful.

Also sharp deterioration memory occurs during dehydration of the body, with low sugar in blood. As a rule, when the causes are eliminated, causing the problem, brain functions are restored.

Important! If young people have difficulty remembering, then it makes sense to reconsider their lifestyle; perhaps this is due to lack of sleep, physical inactivity, and bad habits.

Disorders in the elderly

Older people often complain of forgetting. It often happens that they forgot the way home, what movie they watched the day before, why they entered the room, what familiar objects are called. Usually these problems are associated with senile dementia. However, they are not always a sign of incurable diseases. Typically, older people need more time to memorize and recall information.

This phenomenon is not a problem resulting from inevitable aging, since the brain has a unique ability to produce young cells in any age period. If this ability is not used, then the brain cells atrophy. The following reasons influence memory deterioration in older people:

Important! In old age, it is necessary to promptly distinguish forgetfulness characteristic of age from the onset of development serious illnesses.

How to distinguish normal memory impairment in older people from the development of diseases?

Often, older people and their environment have a question about how to distinguish normal changes cognitive function of the brain from the onset of serious diseases. The main difference is that at the onset of the disease, periodic failures affect daily life person. Persistent deterioration speech apparatus memory loss is called senile dementia. A person practically loses the ability to abstraction and logic.

If forgetfulness and absent-mindedness do not interfere with leading a normal lifestyle and engaging in usual activities, then these are not terrible age-related changes. Incipient dementia is characterized by difficulty completing ordinary tasks, such as washing dishes. Also, a signal to suspect a disease is loss of orientation in a familiar environment, a change in behavior, and distortion of spoken words.

If such symptoms appear, it is necessary to consult with a neurologist as soon as possible; after certain diagnostic measures, will recommend treatment that relieves existing problems.

Effect of anesthesia

Everybody knows Negative influence anesthesia affects the functioning of the brain, memory often suffers from this, the ability to learn decreases, and absent-minded attention is observed. Usually this problem goes away over time, but there are cases when spontaneous recovery from the effects of anesthesia does not occur.

If after 3 months there is no improvement, then you need to contact a neurologist, who, after finding out the cause, will prescribe adequate therapy. Most often, he recommends taking nootropics, neuroprotectors, antioxidants, non-steroidal drugs that have an anti-inflammatory effect. Also, to speed up the recovery of memory, it is recommended to solve crosswords, charades, and read more literature. If you do not consult a doctor in a timely manner, you can only worsen the situation and the therapy will not bring the expected result.

What to do when absent-minded?

Many people in the modern rhythm often suffer from forgetfulness. On the question of how to deal with forgetfulness, experts highlight the following effective recommendations:

You can also use the following technique to combat absent-mindedness: “Find 15 differences.” To increase concentration, you need to engage in feasible sports, reduce the time spent in virtual reality and devote more time to communicating with people. When these simple recommendations do not bring the expected result and the condition only worsens, then you need to consult a doctor.

Exercises to eliminate violations

To prevent memory impairment when problems begin good remedy are simple exercises. Below are some of them:

In order for these exercises to be beneficial, they must be performed daily. Neurologists say that if you spend 20 minutes on this every day, you can significantly improve the functioning of your brain.

Therapy

A medicinal solution to the problem is possible only after a thorough examination. Memory impairment usually requires treatment medicines after 40-50 years, when recommended exercises do not bring the expected results. The most commonly recommended technique for these purposes is:

A special role for the treatment of memory disorders is played by the administration of Cortexin, produced from the brain of a large cattle. It is produced as a powder, which, when dissolved, is injected. This drug widely used for brain injuries and strokes. Helps treat Alzheimer's disease senile dementia. It is also widely used to improve cognitive function of the brain.

Cortexin improves the balance between inhibition and excitation, protects against oxygen starvation brain cells, prevents their aging. Given natural remedy prescribed in courses, which can be repeated three times a year if necessary.

By adhering to certain rules, you can get rid of absent-mindedness. If simple exercises do not improve your well-being, it is recommended to consult a doctor. He will appoint medicines, which will help eliminate memory problems.

It is difficult to say what the norm is in relation to memory. This is individual for each person. Upper limit not defined for memory. There are descriptions of supermemory, where a person remembers the smallest details of everything he encounters, but this is rare.

In official sources, memory is defined as the ability to receive, store and reproduce life experience. This is not only a physiological, but also a cultural process.

It is known that memory is divided into long-term and short-term. Their ratio is different people also not the same. If you have a predominant long-term memory, then most likely you have difficulty remembering material, but you can easily reproduce it after a significant period of time. If, on the contrary, you quickly memorize on the fly, then you probably forget quickly. This is a feature of short-term memory. RAM allows you to remember information up to a certain point.

A person takes memory for granted until he is faced with the problem of forgetfulness. There are many types of memory impairment, and many factors influence this process.

Causes of memory impairment

For simplicity, you can divide them into groups.

1) Directly related to brain damage. These include lesions such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke (acute cerebral circulation), Oncological diseases brain.

2) Deterioration of brain function due to diseases of other organs and organ systems.

3) External unfavorable factors, such as lack of sleep, stressful situations, a sharp change in living conditions, increased stress on the brain, including memory.

4) Chronic intoxication. Abuse of alcohol, drugs (especially tranquilizers, sedatives), smoking, and drug addiction leads to memory deterioration.

5) Age-related changes in the brain.

Memory is associated with different modalities. There are visual, auditory, motor modalities. Their combination and predominance are individual. Someone will remember it easier if they speak the material out loud. It's easier for someone else to remember what the page on which it's written looks like. necessary information or imagine the file cabinet drawers where he supposedly put the required file. The third person will easily recall information using a logical diagram or associative connection. The fourth will write a summary.

Different areas of the brain are associated with different functions, promoting memory. For example, the temporal regions are responsible for the perception of hearing and speech. The occipito-parietal regions create visual and spatial perception, with the parts of the right hemisphere giving color, optical-spatial and facial perceptions, and the left hemisphere - letter and object perceptions. The lower parietal areas are responsible for the actions of the hand and speech apparatus. When they are affected, a person cannot recognize objects by touch (astereognosia).

And depending on which area of ​​the brain is affected, the corresponding types of memory will be impaired.

IN Lately More and more reliable information is emerging about the influence of hormones on the processes of thinking and memory. Noted positive influence vasopressin, testosterone, estrogen, prolactin to accelerate learning, stimulate attention, transfer information from short-term memory to long-term memory. Oxytocin, on the other hand, has the opposite effect, which causes memory deterioration and forgetfulness in women after childbirth and when breastfeeding.

Diseases leading to memory impairment

Let's look at the diseases that most often cause memory problems.

First of all, as the most common, these are traumatic brain injuries. With them, complaints of memory deterioration almost always appear, and the more so, the more more serious injury. TBI is also characterized by the phenomena of retrograde and anterograde amnesia. In this case, the person does not remember not only the moment of injury, but also the events preceding and following it. Sometimes confabulations and hallucinations appear against this background. Confabulations are false memories produced by the person themselves. For example, when asked what he did yesterday, the patient will tell you that he went to the theater, walked in the park and ate ice cream. In fact, he did not leave the apartment or ward, since he had been ill for a long time. Hallucinations are pathological images that did not exist and could not exist.

A fairly common cause of memory impairment is cerebral circulatory disorder. causes a decrease in blood flow to all parts of the brain and disruption of its functioning, including memory impairment. Recently, atherosclerosis has become common cause memory impairment in young people, although previously it was detected mainly in the elderly. In addition, this is a provoking factor in the development acute disorder cerebral circulation. develops in one or another area of ​​the brain, stopping blood access to it almost completely. This grossly disrupts the functions of these zones and memory among them.

Similar symptoms can be observed with. One of dangerous complications it is angiopathy - vascular damage, in which there is thickening of the vascular wall and closure of small vessels. This leads to impaired blood circulation in all organs, including the brain, and as a result, memory deteriorates.

Memory deterioration may be the first a sign of disease thyroid gland associated with a lack of production of its hormones (hypothyroidism). The latter are 65% iodine. Decreased memory in this case is combined with an increase in body weight, the appearance of depression, apathy, edema, muscle weakness, and irritability. To prevent iodine deficiency, first of all, you should adjust your diet by adding foods such as iodized salt and dairy products (the latter is preferable), seaweed And sea ​​fish, persimmon, hard cheese and nuts.

It is possible to use physiotherapeutic methods, for example electrophoresis with intranasal (transnasal) administration of glutamic acid preparations.

Psychological and pedagogical correction is also successfully used to help patients with memory impairment. With the help of a teacher, the patient learns to remember using other brain functions instead of the affected ones. For example, if a person cannot remember words spoken out loud, then by imagining a visual image meaning the same word, memorization is possible. This is difficult, long, painstaking work. It is necessary not only to learn to remember using other connections in the brain, but also to bring this process to automaticity.

This symptom is dangerous only as an unfavorable prognostic sign, indicating the progression of another disease. Moreover, this violates social adaptation patient, worsens his quality of life.

Which doctor should I contact if my memory is worsening?

If you suspect that you have a memory disorder, then you should contact a neurologist, neuropsychologist or therapist who will conduct additional examination. But there are some things you can do yourself and start right now.

It is known that most often, when a patient complains of memory impairment, it turns out that the main reason is impaired attention.

This is very common among older people and schoolchildren. Events and information are underestimated and perceived fleetingly, especially if the situation is familiar to the person. And this state of affairs is quite difficult to change. The only way out- constant work on yourself, training attention and memory: record important data on paper, keep a diary, master mental arithmetic to perfection.

This method of training the brain is well described in the book of American professor Lawrence Katz. These exercises activate the brain, promote the creation of new connections and associations, and engage various parts of the brain.

Here are some of these exercises:

Try to perform your usual actions with your eyes closed.
- If you are right-handed, try doing something with your left hand (for a left-handed person - with your right hand): combing your hair, writing, brushing your teeth, putting on clothes. wrist watch to the other hand.
- Master Braille (a reading and writing system for the blind) or sign language, at least the basics.
- Learn to type on the keyboard with all ten fingers.
- Master the new kind handicrafts.
- Learn to distinguish coins of different denominations by touch.
- Read articles about things you’ve never been interested in before.
- Try to go to new places, meet new people.
- Try to speak in unfamiliar languages.

The brain also constantly needs training. And remember that how long you will be “of sound mind and solid memory” depends on to a greater extent from you.

Moskvina Anna Mikhailovna, general practitioner

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