Hello and welcome to
"Health for a Lifetime"
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I'm your host, Don Mackintosh
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and today we hope you
will REMEMBER this program!
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We're going to be
talking about memory,
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and here to help us
remember what we should remember
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is Dr. Nedley!
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We're glad you're with us!
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Thank you, it's good
to be with you as always!
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And for those of you who
don't remember Dr. Nedley,
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he is a physician
from Ardmore, Oklahoma
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and, also now you are the
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president of "Weimar
Center of Health and Education"
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Yes, "Weimar Center
of Health and Education"
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and, you know, you've
got the "NEWSTART Program"
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there which deals with
not only PHYSICAL new starts
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but also
mental... peak performance,
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and coming back around,
and gaining that optimal
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performance of the brain.
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Memory has a lot
to do with that...
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It does have a
lot to do with it.
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In fact, we run mental
peak performance programs
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where we have people
come and live for 5 days
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...in a hotel, or at
Weimar to actually implement
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the principles that will
significantly improve their
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mental performance,
and often their memory
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will be significantly improved.
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We've had attorneys who were
losing recall in the court room
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They'll come
through the program,
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and they'll talk about...
"Wow, they're a lot sharper"
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They can remember now when
they're talking to the jury
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And they can remember the
important points without having
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to shuffle and refer
back to the notes, etc.
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So it can make a
profound difference.
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So memory is, you know,
it's not the highest function
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of the brain, but it's a
function of the brain that's
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very important! That's right
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The highest
function of the brain is
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the analytical portion of
the brain, frontal lobe...
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and that's where we
accomplish advanced planning,
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and advanced thinking.
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But very important, our
frontal lobes are of no use
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unless we have memory
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because that's what
we're basing our analysis on
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are things that are actually
stored, either recently,
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or in the past, in our memory
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and putting it all together
so that our frontal lobes
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can function well.
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So our filing cabinet
has to be working well,
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or in computer language,
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we're going to have a short-term
and long-term memory available
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Yes, and I've heard some
people overstate the importance
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of the frontal lobe by saying...
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"If I had a choice, I'd
rather have Alzheimer disease
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and still have a frontal lobe.
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Well, there is no such thing.
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Because, the frontal lobe... yes
it primarily affects the memory
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But your frontal lobe is of
no use if you don't have memory.
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That's a good point.
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It's like having a
car without wheels.
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A good engine with no wheels
won't help you. That's right!
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Seven types of memory problems
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you want to talk
about to get us started!
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Yes! The first one is transience
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Transience... Yes,
and that is a tendency
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to forget facts
or figures over time.
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And, of course, the
time when we tend to forget
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facts and figures the most
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is actually right after
we're given them... sometimes.
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But studies show the longer the
time interval from the time we
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have learned the
facts, and figures,
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the greater the chance
that we're going to lose it.
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So, like, do you know
your phone number from when
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you were in your
first house growing up?
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Actually, I do!
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Because you lived there so
LONG though... That's right!
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I didn't live so
long in the first house,
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so I have no clue.
Oh, is that right...
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But I know some other
numbers, and it's usually when I
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lived there
longer. Yeah, that's true.
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And, of course, that means
when you use facts and figures
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repeatedly, you're much more
likely to retain them over time
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...even years later.
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You know, it's
been... what, 34 years since I
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lived in that home, but I
can recite, to you, precisely
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what my phone
number was at age 15.
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And I can precisely quote where
the places I lived more than
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10 years; which, growing up,
I never lived anywhere more than
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like 2-1/2, so... Yeah
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So, transience...
that's that type of problem
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Yeah, and actually there
is some beneficial aspects
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to transience as well.
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Clears out the
brain. You're right!
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It clears the brain.
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And we don't need
to brain cluttered with
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unimportant facts and figures.
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Like who cares about
your phone number... Exactly!
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It's of no use now.
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And it would be nice if
that were, you know, uncluttered
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and we could put something
else there of importance
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And so transience does
have an important role to play
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but we just need to be able
to utilize our memories in such
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a way where we remember the
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important things that
we're going to need to recall.
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Absentmindedness!
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Absentmindedness if the
second problem with memory loss
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And absentmindedness
occurs as a result of lack of
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close enough attention to
what needs to be remembered.
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What was that? ha, ha,
ha Sort of like that, right?
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Exactly... you were not
paying attention... ha, ha, ha
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And that's what
causes absentmindedness.
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And so when people lose keys,
the problem is absentmindedness
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They just weren't
paying attention to
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where they put it down.
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And the brain doesn't
get a chance to encode
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the information securely.
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It also involves in
forgetting a time...
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maybe forgetting when
medicine should be taken.
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Keeping an appointment...
all of those things
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not taking even your daily
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vitamin like
you're supposed to...
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All of those are due to
absentmindedness problems.
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And the solution to
that is fairly simple
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in addition to
lifestyle measures that we're
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going to mention
later on in the program...
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the solution is focus...
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AND if you're going to
be repeatedly doing things,
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do them the same way every time
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In other words, put
your keys in the same place
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every time... You
sound like my wife!
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Ha, ha, ha...
Because I have been known
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to lose my keys once in a while.
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But then, didn't
Einstein get lost...
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You know, he was a brilliant guy
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but he couldn't find
his way home sometimes...
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Yeah, that's true.
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I mean, he would not be
able to find his way home...
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and that's due
to absentmindedness
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OR, what often happens is
you're paying attention to
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something that you
thing is more important...
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and so the little details
of life kind of go by you
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...and then
occasionally, they bite you.
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My wife doesn't buy
the Einstein thing anymore
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because she goes... "You're
no Einstein" Ha, ha, ha, ha
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BLOCKING!
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Yes, blocking is where you
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already have it
in your memory...
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So in other words,
you've had focus...
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it's not
absentmindedness anymore.
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The focus has produced a
permanent memory of this item
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It's in your hippocampus.
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Your hippocampus is
there, and working...
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That section of... it's
not a hippo actually camping
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in your place, but that's the...
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That's the section of
the brain that actually is
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behind the ear
there in what we call the
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temporal lobe of the brain.
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That's where
memories are stored.
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And, in this particular instance
the problem is being able to
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RETRIEVE that memory.
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And, to be able to
bring it forward...
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It's on the tip-of-my-tongue
type thing? EXACTLY!
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It's on the tip-of-my-tongue
but I can't say it.
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Well what does that mean?
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That means you're "blocking"
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The memory is there, but
you can't bring it forward.
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So when you say,
"You're blocking"
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that's something
you're actually DOING?
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Or is that something
that's actually being done?
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Well, it's actually
something your brain is doing.
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Your brain is blocking it
from actually coming forward.
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It's there... you
just can't retrieve it
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when you want to. Hmm
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Now, studies show
that when that happens
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50% of the time, you WILL
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be able to bring it
forward within 1 minute... Okay
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And so, it's just a matter of
getting those neurons refreshed
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and getting that
portion of the memory logged
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and bringing it
forward 50% of the time.
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The other 50% of
the time is a problem
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and that's one that
we'll talk about solutions to
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in the later
half of the program.
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MISATTRIBUTION!
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Yeah, misattribution is
where you DO have a memory
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that is correct, but
there's a WRONG SOURCE
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Or, you don't
remember things accurately,
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or you remember them in part.
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And this occurs when
you believe a thought
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was totally original with
you but in reality, it's not...
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And that's misattribution...
that can occur frequently.
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Or plagiarism, you might
call it that... That's right
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Unexplainable, or unintentional
plagiarism which a writer
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passes off some
information as original.
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And the criminal justice
system ... this is important
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because misattribution,
on the part of an eyewitness
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can lead to the
arrest and conviction of
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innocent individuals.
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And, this tends to
occur more commonly with aging
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and it is something that
can be serious particularly
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when someone... there are
many people in prison wrongly,
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due to a memory
problem of misattribution.
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Well that's kind of like
some of them being reversed
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now with DNA and
different things,
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but you hear that that happens
every once in a while. Exactly
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SUGGESTIBILITY!
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Yes, suggestibility
refers to false memories...
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And this tends to
develop because someone gave
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you key information, or a
suggestion at the same time
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that you're trying
to retrieve a memory...
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with the suggestion
fooling your mind into thinking
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it's a real memory.
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And so, this also can occur
in the criminal justice system
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because you might have
seen someone flee from your car
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that might have been
stealing something from your car
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but you didn't get a
good look at the thief,
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and another person on the
street insisted that this person
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was wearing a green plaid jacket
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And then when the
policeman comes to you,
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and gives you a mockup
of individuals that may have
00:10:25.32\00:10:29.60
committed this crime,
you choose the one with the
00:10:29.63\00:10:32.52
green plaid jacket.
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You didn't see it, but because
someone else suggested it
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you THINK that's
the person that's there.
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You know, I read a study once
that said this happens a lot in
00:10:39.12\00:10:42.10
cases of alleged ABUSE!
00:10:42.13\00:10:44.92
And that's very true.
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Often when a person from
the criminal justice system
00:10:46.89\00:10:50.55
is asking a child
about sexual abuse,
00:10:50.58\00:10:53.93
they'll actually
conjure up just the suggestion
00:10:53.96\00:10:57.44
will make them often conjure
up accusations of sexual abuse
00:10:57.47\00:11:01.71
even among family
members that never occurred.
00:11:01.74\00:11:05.18
And this can even
occur in adults...
00:11:05.21\00:11:08.25
And, in fact, it's well
studied out; it's a culprit
00:11:08.28\00:11:13.20
that IS a serious problem.
00:11:13.23\00:11:16.12
And several studies
with preschoolers indicate
00:11:16.15\00:11:19.08
that suggestion questioning
by the police or other adults
00:11:19.11\00:11:21.95
can lead children to assert
that certain events occurred
00:11:21.98\00:11:24.72
when, in fact, they didn't.
00:11:24.75\00:11:26.54
And, you can do this even
in a real study-type module
00:11:26.57\00:11:32.09
where you're having
someone pose as that
00:11:32.10\00:11:34.11
questioning kids, and they can
come up with all sorts of stuff.
00:11:34.14\00:11:38.42
BIAS!
00:11:38.45\00:11:39.45
Bias is the 6th problem...
00:11:39.48\00:11:42.73
and this is a belief that
the memory works like a camera
00:11:42.76\00:11:46.91
recording what you
learn with complete accuracy
00:11:46.94\00:11:49.54
Of course, that's a
myth; we all have biases
00:11:49.57\00:11:52.46
Memory is filtered
by personal biases,
00:11:52.49\00:11:54.74
including experiences,
beliefs, prior knowledge
00:11:54.75\00:11:57.62
And these factors can
influence what information is
00:11:57.65\00:12:00.08
actually called up when
an individual attempts to
00:12:00.09\00:12:02.74
recall a memory.
00:12:02.75\00:12:04.36
The most interesting examples
are people's recollections
00:12:04.37\00:12:08.55
of their
romantic relationships...
00:12:08.58\00:12:11.15
and often bias is involved.
00:12:11.18\00:12:13.46
There was a very neat
study where someone interviewed
00:12:13.49\00:12:16.64
couples about their
romantic relationship
00:12:16.67\00:12:18.86
when they were
starting this relationship,
00:12:18.89\00:12:21.09
and then
interviewed them 2 months later.
00:12:21.12\00:12:23.43
Then they asked them to recall
what they said 2 months before.
00:12:23.44\00:12:28.10
And what they said,
if their relationship was
00:12:28.13\00:12:31.85
starting to turn negative,
00:12:31.88\00:12:33.32
they actually thought that
they viewed the relationship
00:12:33.35\00:12:36.44
more negatively 2 months earlier
00:12:36.45\00:12:38.44
And so they said, "Yes, I kind
of knew this. I knew that. "
00:12:38.47\00:12:41.82
And if their
romantic relationship was
00:12:41.85\00:12:44.21
becoming positive,
they actually asserted that
00:12:44.24\00:12:47.23
they believed their
romantic relationship was more
00:12:47.24\00:12:49.98
positive and they stated that...
00:12:50.01\00:12:51.52
when, in fact, they didn't.
00:12:51.55\00:12:53.13
And so, in other words, we
can even re-write the history
00:12:53.16\00:12:56.41
of how we had viewed things
00:12:56.44\00:12:58.10
based to our
developed bias over time.
00:12:58.13\00:13:03.41
Persistence... the last one.
00:13:03.44\00:13:05.54
PERSISTENCE!
00:13:05.57\00:13:06.71
This is memories of traumatic
events and negative feelings.
00:13:06.74\00:13:11.81
This can occur with
posttraumatic stress disorder
00:13:11.84\00:13:15.84
for instance...
where you have a flashback
00:13:15.87\00:13:18.12
You will actually SEE
things in your mind's eye
00:13:18.15\00:13:22.84
exactly how they happen.
00:13:22.87\00:13:24.18
You might even smell the
smell that occurred at that time
00:13:24.21\00:13:27.94
And, these
flashbacks can be traumatic.
00:13:27.97\00:13:31.50
They can be problematic.
00:13:31.53\00:13:32.84
That's not the way we're
supposed to store memories
00:13:32.87\00:13:35.65
We're actually supposed to
00:13:35.68\00:13:36.89
store it more in
the verbal sense...
00:13:36.92\00:13:39.27
logging it like a journalist
00:13:39.30\00:13:40.80
That's how the
hippocampus does it.
00:13:40.83\00:13:42.64
But when the occipital lobe,
the back portion of the brain
00:13:42.67\00:13:45.91
gets involved in memory,
we can have these flashbacks
00:13:45.92\00:13:48.63
that can be problematic.
00:13:48.66\00:13:51.17
Okay, so just to help us
remember before we come back
00:13:51.20\00:13:54.05
to the second half, let's
look at them all at once...
00:13:54.08\00:13:56.36
We have transience... up
on our graphic all together
00:13:56.39\00:14:00.46
Those are the problems!
00:14:07.09\00:14:08.40
What about some solutions?
00:14:08.44\00:14:09.71
We're going to talk to
Dr. Nedley when we come back
00:14:09.72\00:14:11.87
about how to
address memory issues
00:14:11.90\00:14:14.06
Join us... if you can
remember when we come back!
00:14:14.10\00:14:16.14