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Not Another Senior Moment!
We did it again. A couple of months ago, there was the Where Did
We Park The Car alert. Last week it was the Wrong Theatre (well,
what are they doing naming two theatres in London ‘the Lyric’?)
Senior moments are getting more frequent among our friends too.
What was the name of that famous actor/author/play/novel? What is
that word used to describe a ghost? Remember the catch phrase from
that radio show – can’t remember the title at the moment.
Usually, we do remember, once we stop thinking about it
(though the car parking episode cost us over £100, after we reported
the vehicle stolen, only to find it had been clamped in the one road
we didn’t explore).
It’s a lot to do with short-term memory. Old stuff about our
childhood, we never forget, though in some cases it would be a good
idea if we did. We also never forget first love, first interview,
first holiday abroad, first anything. Obviously, these things make a
big impact.
Senior moments, on the whole, are not a sign of Alzheimers.
But brain cells do die off as we get older, and the brain has to
work harder to make connections. Sometimes it’s too much for our
short-term memory to deal with. Also, we have too many memories, all
juggling for attention in our heads.
Does it matter – having senior moments? Yes, if it’s a
security problem: leaving home with a window open, or the gas on
could have serious consequences. Once anything like that happens,
there’s a need to memorise the error and never do it again. (We are
extremely careful about knowing where we park nowadays, and will
never again, I hope, confuse the two Lyrics.) But in most instances,
senior moments don’t really matter. They are just annoying. And
anyway, you do remember if you wait.
Even so, I must admit to feeling somewhat ashamed of my senior
moments. It takes a couple of weeks before I can begin to laugh
at them and bring myself to tell the children. I remember my own
parents concealing their senior moments, as if they were a terrible
crime, and myself getting frantic with worry then I found out about
them. (No – I must be honest. I was actually angry as well as
worried. I felt they needed more supervision, perhaps go into a
residential home or sheltered housing, though in the end they stayed
in their flat and died in hospital of that most senior of moments, a
great age: 98 and 99 to be exact.)
But I must add a final encouraging note. Our waitress, all of
23, gave us the lunch menus when we were out for dinner the other
day. I pointed this out to her and she said, ‘I’m getting so
absent-minded. Do you know, I came home and put the shopping in the
oven instead of the fridge yesterday.’
Must have been a junior moment.
If you want to know more about retaining or gaining memory, I have
written extensively on the subject on this website. Go to
Brain
Training.
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Talkback is a
regular feature in laterlife.com run by
journalist and author Helen Franks. 
