I was returning home from having lunch with a friend recently and saw a billboard for something called VIVIMIND™. One line read, “Test your memory at VIVIMIND™.com.” Since I am past 60 and also because I have the obvious interest in this field, when I got home I logged on to the website which said VIVIMIND™ is “a patented product based on the naturally occurring ingredient homotaurine, which binds to A-beta proteins and reduces the deposition and toxic effects of these proteins in the brain.” The site claims the product is supported by over 15 years of combined rigorous scientific research including clinical testing with over 2,000 individuals. The site also claims VIVIMIND™ helps prevent memory loss due to aging and that it is sold in drugstores and supermarkets as well as online. You take two tablets daily and a month’s supply costs $90. One of the drug store chains listed that stock the product was Shoppers’ Drug Mart and there is a store not five minutes away from where I live. I was going to walk there to check it out but then I got to thinking. To me, more than anything, this product is a sign of three trends. One is that this current crop of seniors will not be content to just make a long, slow slide into senility as previous generations might have. Another point is about the importance now of having a product backed by solid scientific research. Don’t get me wrong though, I have no idea whether VIVIMIND™ is backed by solid scientific research other than what they claim. Finally, the website says VIVIMIND™ is a “natural health product”. I am a recent convert to natural health products. I was diagnosed recently with high blood pressure. It was inevitable. My father had it from his mid-forties. I tried medication after medication and had side effects with every one of them. About the time that my doctor, in frustration, was about to prescribe what he referred to as “water pills”, a medication that my father would have been prescribed half a century ago, I tried omega-3 fatty acids at the suggestion of a friend. My blood pressure is now normal. Even so, given a choice between taking a supplement for the rest of my life versus the change brought about by a natural regulation of cognitive function as with Cogmed Working Memory Training…well you know where this is going. Just for the record again, I have a relationship with Cogmed Working Memory Training (which I described in my first post) but I have not done the training. Finally, consider VIVIMIND™ at $90 a month versus a one-time fee of $1,500 for the Cogmed Training? Well it seems a bit of a no-brainer unless you don’t plan on living very long.
I recently came across an article in the Los Angeles Times on time management describing the role of working memory and the body’s internal clock in time awareness. It was of interest to me because being on time is usually a failing for people with ADHD, however, I am quite punctual and a few years back I worked with a partner who was also ADHD and punctual. ADHD and punctuality are not words that are normally in the same sentence. My former partner and I are unusual. He and I came at punctuality from different directions. The article relates the problems with the estimation of the passage of time at the level of hours and minutes that characterizes ADHD and schizophrenia and suggests that the common element with these two disorders is problems with working memory. Problems with working memory could cause problems with time management. My former partner relied on a gadget–a Timex watch which replicated his calendar from Microsoft Entourage and would beep loudly ten minutes before appointments. I relied on my internal body clock and my sense and estimation of the passage of time. Regardless, the article describes how you can improve your perception of time by improving working memory as well as assisting your body’s internal clock. Cogmed Working Memory Training is being employed by some clinicians as a treatment for stroke damage but it is being positioned more now as a way of improving working memory in individuals who have problems with it but in all other ways may be quite normal. Working memory problems exist in about 10% of the general population according to Tracy Alloway and more about her research at her university’s website. One of the recommendations that really hit home with me in the LA Times piece was the recommendation to use an analogue watch or clock rather than digital. The article quotes Dr Martin L. Kutscher, author of an upcoming book entitledOrganizing the Disorganized Child, “Time is a very ethereal, abstract issue especially for people with attention problems.” He goes on to say, “For these people, the visual image of, say 15 minutes on an analogue clock or watch is much more concrete than a static display of numbers on the face of a cellphone.” I am a gadget freak and was one of the first to own a digital watch decades ago. I went back to analogue because I could never tell what time it was. Oh sure, I knew it was 12:23:37 or whatever. But what time is that? A quarter after two does no register in my brain the same as 2:15. I did a little experiment way back then. I would ask someone with a digital watch what time it was just after I noticed they had looked at their watch. Invariably they would have to check their watch again to respond. I also asked people with analogue watches the same question again after they have just looked at their watches and almost never did they have to look at their watches a second time. I know the reason I am usually on time is not as simple as just using an analogue watch to assist my internal clock. But making time visual could be part of the reason why. Something else that I stumbled across some years ago that seems to help with staying on task at my desk is a metronome set at 60 beats a minute. Now whether marking the passage of time, as the metronome would, at the rate of one beat per second can actually assist the body’s internal clock and therefore also support working memory I have no idea but both these ideas have helped me with the management of my time an, to some degree, with staying on task.
Working memory was first explained to me by a psychologist friend as memory in which words, numbers or visual images and spatial relationships are stored for just a few seconds to be manipulated or recalled. I know from an neuro-psychological assessment I had in 2004 that I have a problem as described in the report as “Immediate and delayed recall of visual and non-verbal information.”
I was also tested in these three key areas by Dr. Atilla Turgay during a consultation in his office last summer. He does this test in just a few minutes asking you to remember and repeat back seven digit numbers, sentences forward and backward and then, the one I did terribly at, the positioning of his fingers, hands and legs which I had to replicate.
Lately I have come across references to working memory as fluid intelligence and the I started to get confused. This confusion increased just a few weeks ago when I was reading a blog that referred to a relationship between schizophrenia and problems in working memory. It would seem this is getting pretty far from remembering someone’s phone number or a street address. I accept that my knowledge in this area is limited. In addition, new knowledge in the area of neuroscience seems to be increasing daily.
I will come back to this subject when my own understanding has grown enough to explore it further…