Posted in cultural phenom, history of memory, medicine, public education, science of memory, tagged alzheimer's, antipsychotics, dementia, improving care, NYT's science section on June 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I would love to read a good history of pharmaceuticals in this country. Just when did we become convinced that it is cheaper to medicate than to provide actual care or change behaviors? How is it that we arrive at the numbers that tell us this is so? And why [...]
Posted in cultural phenom, history of memory, public education, science of memory, tagged aging, memory loss, wisdom on May 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The NYT’s Science Section featured an interesting article today about how memory loss associated with aging might actually be recast as a widening of the attention/focus to better synthesize information rather than focus on details. This, the article tells us, is another way to define wisdom.
Might this also be true of other “losses” associated [...]
Posted in books, cultural phenom, history of memory, science of memory, tagged books on memory, memory loss, sue halpern, what's normal? on May 19, 2008 | No Comments »
As the population ages, the marker of “normal” in memory loss will continue to shift. There are several books out now that address the worry over memory loss in all its manifestations - from seemingly benign to the significant losses in the dementia experience. The latest entry is coming out this month from [...]
Posted in cultural phenom, medicine, public education, science of memory, tagged alzheimer's, dementia, Enbrel, miracle cure, peter whitehouse on April 15, 2008 | 1 Comment »
There’s a lot of electronic activity going on about “video proof” of a “miracle cure” for Alzheimer’s - the anti-arthritis medication Enbrel. I think it’s important to listen to all the voices out there on this one. The impulse is to fly into action and proclaim a cure. But there’s a lot of [...]
Posted in history of memory, science of memory, tagged dementia, memory loss, erase memory on January 30, 2008 | No Comments »
As I was strolling through old emails this afternoon, I came across this article that my husband sent to me…and that I forgot about…
We tend to think of memory as an etching on our brains, but this article steers us toward a much more fluid, living sense of memory. Food for thought.
Posted in cultural phenom, medicine, public education, science of memory, tagged carved in sand, Catherine Jakobson Ramin, dementia, forgetting, Jane Brody, memory loss on December 11, 2007 | No Comments »
For two weeks in a row now, Jane Brody’s Personal Health column in the Science Times section of the New York Times has focused on aging-related memory loss. In the first, “Cracking the Code to the Memory Vault,” she talks about how it haunts her and her husband, who is older than she is, [...]
Posted in cultural phenom, science of memory, tagged , amnesia, forgetting, memory, music, Oliver Sacks on September 30, 2007 | No Comments »
In the Sept. 24th issue of the New Yorker, Oliver Sacks tells the tale of Clive Wearing. In his forties, Wearing suffered herpes encephalitis and as a result, has a memory of only seconds. Sacks is fascinated by Wearing’s retained musical skills and his love for his wife Deborah. It’s a long [...]
Posted in cultural phenom, science of memory, tagged alzheimer's, dementia, forget, forgetting, immortality, memory, software on September 26, 2007 | No Comments »
A. R. Luria gave us “S” in the Mind of a Mnemonist. “S” could remember extensive, random sequences of numbers years after he’d seen them. Yet, he was nearly socially illiterate. Now there is Gordon Bell and life logging. Bell endeavors to record every bit of data in his [...]
