It Starts With The Gas

A rule of thumb for adults with aging parents: When the elderly forget to turn off the gas, start shopping for assisted living.

Today, I left on the gas.

This morning I cooked (of all the ironies), the last of my eggs. I slid them onto my plate, put the sauté pan in the sink, ate, cleaned up …and left. Three hours later, I returned to make a nice cup of tea. There, simmering away, was that incriminating, barely visible blue flame. Above me hovered the dementia fairy, whispering softly, “This is how it starts, you know.”

Does it? Is this how it starts? Was this an aberrance? Just a reflection of my chronic distractibility? Or an ominous sign?

Back at my desk, I worried, wondered, did a quick once-over of my mental status. Can I still calculate? (yes, faster than when I was 50, or 30, for that matter). Do I lose things? (oh boy, we probably shouldn’t discuss that). Do I forget more? (let’s avoid this too). How is my decision-making? (pretty damn good; I resigned from Match.com, permanently). Can I learn new things? (yes; I’ve adopted all things Apple and my devices and I are doing quite fine together).

I confess, I’ve adopted some memory crutches:

1. Stash stuff in the same place. Always. Do not get creative about where to put cars, keys, earrings, candy you vow not to eat. If I take a risk and discover a better place for something, it’s likely to become part of my inaccessible mental cold storage locker. I haven’t lost my car yet, but I have “misplaced” it.
2. Make a list. Or ten (and remember where you put them.) I hate lists…but keeping track of work, home, things that matter, is far too challenging without them (thank you Siri for helping with this miserable task).
3. Stop multi-tasking. OK, this is impossible, especially at work. But when I try to manage multiple mental streams, something inevitably floats away. “Where was I?” has become my mantra.

But even with my little tricks, there is no denying that my mind is different. I’ve always been easily distracted but as I age, that has magnified. Focus is harder to maintain. I bore more easily too (thus, the distractibility). My mental discontent seems to be increasing. My mind is interested in more things than I can reasonably explore. And that just makes the forgetting worse.

But please, please let there be an up-side.

Well, one “plus” is that as we lose focus, researchers increase their focus on us. How come? For the usual reasons: money. When Boomers worry, corporations see dollar signs. As a group, we are scared to death of aging, dementia, frailty and dependence. If you want to develop a market, figure out how to soothe us (just make sure we remember your pitch). To find a niche, the hucksters need data. What are our old brains really like anyway?

Well, for starters, we are losing things (and not just our keys). “Fluid Intelligence” peaks in your 20s. Genetics influence it. This underlies our capacity to solve abstract problems that rely little on experience. But the gain is in “Crystallized Intelligence” which takes off in our middle years. It builds on experience and education. Inductive reasoning and judgment depend on this kind of intelligence. We elders actually seem to get much better at utilizing past experience to assess complex problems with moral, cultural, or political dimensions. Maybe we get wiser, even as we forget to turn off the gas.

Beyond the usual memory tricks, there are ways to shore up the aging brain. The continuous pursuit of learning can buy you 10 extra years of brainpower as compared to your peers. Your joints might creak, but your brain will be younger, more vibrant. Challenge your mind: Read, write, do puzzles (Words With Friends anyone?), take classes, use your computer. Men, especially, seem to benefit from computers (is it the lure of porn, even for old guys?). But beyond the obvious, here are some other ways to keep a fit brain: stay connected socially; seek out support from loved ones; volunteer; attend meetings about things you care about; manage stress to maximize a sense of control over your life.

The benefit extends beyond yourself. A decline in cognitive functioning exacts a huge cost: on the health care system, on society, on families. At a time when our species faces so much uncertainty, so many risks, we will need more than technical skill from the young’uns to save us from ourselves. We will need judgment, wisdom, a moral compass. If my mind goes too soon, my community can’t benefit from my well-developed intelligence. So I’ll keep writing, and reading, and trying to beat my friends’ Words.

Then maybe I’ll remember where I stashed that candy.