By Michael Talibard
OUR health system prioritises longevity over quality of life, so it can be no surprise that dementia is now the leading cause of death in the UK. Old people fear dementia, and are right to do so; but also sometimes they are wrong, in that they fear they can see symptoms of it in themselves when it’s not so. I think it is worth reminding them that there is a difference between age-related forgetfulness – of which they may well be showing signs – and dementia.
I am not qualified to diagnose, but there follows an amateur’s best shot at explaining the difference. Age-related forgetfulness is when you go to fetch something from your bedroom, and when you get there you can’t recall what it was you went for. We’ve all done that: it’s frustrating, but can be quite funny. Dementia is when you can’t recognise your bedroom, or find your way back. There’s nothing funny about that.
Normal age-related memory loss is not something to worry about, in my opinion: just keep active. First, there is nothing much you can do about it in terms of treatments or supplements (they don’t work). It is unprofitable to worry about things which you can’t change. Secondly, I look upon minor memory issues as a price worth paying for the extra wisdom and calm of old age. But if your issues do not seem minor, talk to your GP.
When a word – that word you know perfectly well – just won’t come into focus for you, then my advice is to stop struggling, stop searching your mind for it. Quite often, if you just relax and let it go, it will come to you unbidden three minutes later. Yes, I know it’s then too late to use it in the context you wanted it for, but that’s life.
I find that age alters the reach of my memories. Usually nowadays, I can recall events from long ago better than from last week. Not only events, but also words – especially words. People’s brains don’t all work in the same way, and mine is certainly more verbal than visual. I can still repeat the lines, word for word, that I learned for a play 60 years ago, but I cannot picture the set we were acting it on, or the other players. Still, this doesn’t really trouble me.
I used to go sailing with a bunch of friends, and as we gathered on the boat before the race, it was our custom to tell jokes. For a while, these were often jokes about age and memory. We really should not have done this: such humour can be cruel. Here is a sample:
Bill gets back from holiday. Friend calls round and asks, “Where did you go on your holiday?” Bill replies, “Ah… where did we go? Hang on, I’m having a senior moment, but no worries. I have a strategy for this. Now then… it starts with a flower. Um… Name me some flowers.” Friend: “Daffodil, rose…”
Bill: “That’s it!” He turns and calls into the kitchen, “Rose, where did we go on holiday?”
When we stopped telling those jokes, I might kid myself that we had developed more of a guilty conscience. But rather than self-correction, it was probably only self-protection, because we were not young any more, and we realised how soon it could all apply to us.
Such mockery is as old as the hills. In ancient times, ageism was rife in Athens, so mental disability from old age is a constant theme in the satires of Aristophanes, I’m told.
I came across a somewhat more recent example with my music group, when we played Haydn’s incidental music (1774) for Le Distrait by Regnard, in which the hero is so absent-minded as to forget his own wedding.
And, of course, modern stand-up comedians often resort to the theme of decrepitude. None of them handles this so well as Ricky Gervais. That’s because he is laughing at himself; also because he has both intelligence and empathy in abundance.
It is thought by researchers that much of our memory is narrative: that when we recall an event, what we are remembering is how we last told that story. And of course we embellish it a bit: each retelling is neater than the last. Among the grievances that younger people sometimes voice against us oldies is how often we tell the same stories.
In my case, this would be an entirely justified complaint, and I’m lucky it is not levelled at me more often. But still, the stories we old folk repeat are generally the ones that mean the most to us. They enshrine some feeling or value that we treasure, or they remind us of an important relationship we formerly enjoyed. This is not something to be mocked.
Michael Talibard, who is now in his 80s, is a retired teacher and former head of English at Victoria College. He founded the Jersey branch of U3A and was its chairman for 20 years.
