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Not declining, just processing

    Here’s some really good news for those of you out there who are...ahem...no longer in your prime. You know who you are. If not, you’re the ones who forget where your car keys are, or you have trouble putting names with familiar faces, or you forget that it was a loaf of bread you went to get at the grocery store. The good news is this: Researchers — Bless them! — have concluded that brains of older people in fact probably are not in decline.
    There are exceptions, of course. Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease that truly does damage the brain, and unfortunately it afflicts 13 percent of people over age 65.
    But the others aren’t losing brain power at all. In fact, scientists believe that the older we get, the more knowledge and experiences we pack into our cranium, and that only leads to a broader and deeper understanding of everything. The researchers explain their findings something like this: A young brain might be able to recall that the Allied Forces invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944. But the more experienced brain can put that event in context by adding layers of information.
    So that inability to remember a phone number isn’t necessarily a sign of a weakening brain. It’s simply that the brain has so much more information to sort through it takes it a little while to find what it’s looking for. The studies show that older people do better, albeit more slowly, recognizing and incorporating context into their thoughts.
    It just might be true that along with age comes wisdom.
    --The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo.

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So that inability to remember a phone number isn’t necessarily a sign of a weakening brain. It’s simply that the brain has so much more information to sort through it takes it a little while to find what it’s looking for.