Monday 17 February 2014

The corners of your mind

I’m a bit of a fan of all things vintage, as you might have gathered given my love of our older generations. Music is no exception to this rule, hence the title of this blog post coming from a much loved song, ‘The way we were’.
 
 
I’ve always felt that the lyrics to this song are a rather poignant reminder of how life changes through the years. It also has important meanings in relation to our memories, the invisible library that lives within our brain and chronicles our lives. Should dementia ever set in, that library becomes muddled, and eventually toms of knowledge are like books that have been borrowed from the library and never returned. The person with dementia then becomes a bit like a frantic librarian, trying desperately to remember where they have stored the particular segment of knowledge that is required.
I wrote in 'Loving our elders and betters' about how, when an older person dies, "It is as if a library has burnt down." Many people would argue that dementia is like a slow burn, very gradually turning memories to cinders, often initially with little physical evidence of the ‘fire’ taking place. Given the choice I think some people facing such a future would rather experience a giant inferno that engulfs their lives with such rapidity that they have no idea that it has even happened, but dementia is rarely like that.
It teases the mind, allowing us to retain selected memories, often those going back many years, but not always the most useful ones. Those crucial practical memories of how to undertake and successfully complete tasks may go very early, as can memories of what we did or said a minute, hour, day or week ago. The precious memories of key life events, and key individuals in our lives, may also end up being filed under absent.
Being deprived of that last set of memories is particularly painful because they characterise our lives and us as individuals. They act as a safety blanket, giving us a place to meander into during those quiet moments of reflection, or provide thoughts of positivity and strength when we are feeling vulnerable or worried. We want to be able to remember people, places and things that are important to us, knowledge we have studied hard to acquire or experiences we want to be able to pass on, but dementia has other ideas.
Memory problems are something we generally – and wrongly - associate with ageing, as I wrote about here. Moreover, I think that throughout our lives many of us are guilty of taking our own memory for granted, and in our interactions with others we readily expect their mind to perform with seamless speed and accuracy. We don’t have time or patience for a hunt around someone else's personal library – we want our information instantly, and not being able to deliver that often leads to the belief that someone is unintelligent, useless, worthless or stupid.
However dementia, and the way in which it can affect our memories, can hit anyone and not just in old age. Having a previously brilliant brain is no guarantee that you won’t get dementia. I’ve met leading doctors, academics and businessmen who are living with dementia – all had hugely admired brains that have now been ravaged. My dad, whilst never a man of high academic standing, had a truly impressive mind – his knowledge of the countryside, farming and animals was second to none. His wisdom was a gift that as a child I never really appreciated. Now it’s gone, I miss it more than words can say.
The corners of our minds harbour things that we may think we will never need, but each memory has its place and importance and being without any of them will adversely affect our lives at some point. We talk a lot about memory ‘loss’ in dementia like it is something that can be found again. Sadly even for people who achieve respite or improvement from their symptoms through therapeutic interventions, they are still living with a terminal disease that is characterised by eventual decline.
What I admire most, however, is the way in which many people with dementia try to guard against this, always working to prevent dementia steeling more books from their memory library. I think as outsiders looking in, we often don’t realise just how hard people with dementia try in order to maintain normality and keep all of those important memories alive. For many, notebooks and post-it notes become their allies – the feeling being that what cannot be remembered must be written down.
Increasingly I think technology (smartphones, tablets and other handheld devices) will have a role to play, particularly for people who are diagnosed with younger onset dementia and are already used to leading very technological lives. However, I think nothing will ever really beat our loved ones for helping to keep memories alive and effectively providing a 'Back Up Brain'* for us all, regardless of whether we develop dementia or not.
Dementia has the power to literally re-write and remove our memories, twisting, confusing and manipulating those precious nuggets of understanding and experience that we build up over our lives. As the song tells us, "Memories may be beautiful and yet, what’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget." Having that choice is a wonderful thing that we should never take for granted. 

Until next time...
Beth x






You can follow me on Twitter: @bethyb1886
*Back Up Brain – BUB –  is a phrase borrowed from my inspirational friend Kate Swaffer, an Australian lady living with young-onset dementia for whom her husband is her primary BUB. I would recommend checking out Kate’s blog http://kateswaffer.com/daily-blog/.

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