About a month ago, I posted a question asking if tegretol users had problems with word finding or short-term memory.   The suggestion was that tegretol, not seizure activity or brain lesions, was the underlying problem.   Many said they experienced memory problems, and said they felt relieved that tegretol might be the culprit.  A couple posters even mentioned they noticed memory improvements when their dosage was reduced.
One woman said her neuro concluded that tegretol caused short-term memory problems (despite not being indicated as a side-effect) on the basis that so many of his/her patients complained of memory loss.   Still others said they saw no relationship.  I don t know the answer, I’m not a doctor or clinical researcher.  But reading one of those scholarly papers on epilepsy the other day, the paper made it clear that most people with epilepsy suffer temporal lobe seizures with the epicenter of those events located in the language (word retrieval) and memory sections of the brain.   Ask your neuro what he or she believes, based on their understanding of your focus area.   I wanted to believe it was the tegretol, I wanted to believe there was no permanent damage from the seizures or from their underlying cause, but I’m not sure.  I do know it is easier to blame the drugs than it is to accept the alternative explanation.

Do you feel that you have a poor memory? You may just have some less-than-effective habits when it comes to taking in and processing information. Barring disease, disorder, or injury, you can improve your ability to learn and retain information.

Brain exercises
Memory, like muscular strength, is a “use it or lose it” proposition. The more you work out your brain, the better you’ll be able to process and remember information.
Novelty and sensory stimulation are the foundation of brain exercise. If you break your routine in a challenging way, you’re using brain pathways you weren’t using before. This can involve something as simple as brushing your teeth with your nondominant hand, which activates little-used connections on the nondominant side of your brain. Or try a “neurobic” exercise – an aerobic exercise for your brain – (see Keep Your Brain Alive Exercise) that forces you to use your faculties in unusual ways, like showering and getting dressed with your eyes closed. Take a course in a subject you don’t know much about, learn a new game of strategy, or cook up some recipes in an unfamiliar cuisine. That’s the most effective way to keep your synapses firing.

General guidelines to improve memory
In addition to exercising your brain, there are some basic things you can do to improve your ability to retain and retrieve memories:

1.Pay attention. You can’t remember something if you never learned it, and you can’t learn something — that is, encode it into your brain — if you don’t pay enough attention to it. It takes about eight seconds of intent focus to process a piece of information through your hippocampus and into the appropriate memory center. So, no multitasking when you need to concentrate! If you distract easily, try to receive information in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.

2.Tailor information acquisition to your learning style. Most people are visual learners; they learn best by reading or otherwise seeing what it is they have to know. But some are auditory learners who learn better by listening. They might benefit by recording information they need and listening to it until they remember it.

3.Involve as many senses as possible. Even if you’re a visual learner, read out loud what you want to remember. If you can recite it rhythmically, even better. Try to relate information to colors, textures, smells and tastes. The physical act of rewriting information can help imprint it onto your brain.

4.Relate information to what you already know. Connect new data to information you already remember, whether it’s new material that builds on previous knowledge, or something as simple as an address of someone who lives on a street where you already know someone.

5.Organize information. Write things down in address books and datebooks and on calendars; take notes on more complex material and reorganize the notes into categories later. Use both words and pictures in learning information.

6.Understand and be able to interpret complex material. For more complex material, focus on understanding basic ideas rather than memorizing isolated details. Be able to explain it to someone else in your own words.

7.Rehearse information frequently and “over-learn”. Review what you’ve learned the same day you learn it, and at intervals thereafter. What researchers call “spaced rehearsal” is more effective than “cramming.” If you’re able to “over-learn” information so that recalling it becomes second nature, so much the better.

8.Be motivated and keep a positive attitude. Tell yourself that you want to learn what you need to remember, and that you can learn and remember it. Telling yourself you have a bad memory actually hampers the ability of your brain to remember, while positive mental feedback sets up an expectation of success.

Mnemonic devices to improve memory
Mnemonics (the initial “m” is silent) are clues of any kind that help us remember something, usually by causing us to associate the information we want to remember with a visual image, a sentence, or a word.

Common types of mnemonic devices include:

1.Visual images – a microphone to remember the name “Mike,” a rose for “Rosie.” Use positive, pleasant images, because the brain often blocks out unpleasant ones, and make them vivid, colorful, and three-dimensional — they’ll be easier to remember.

2.Sentences in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of what you want to remember. Millions of musicians, for example, first memorized the lines of the treble staff with the sentence “Every good boy does fine” (or “deserves favor”), representing the notes E, G, B, D, and F. Medical students often learn groups of nerves, bones, and other anatomical features using nonsense sentences.

3.Acronyms, which are initials that creates pronounceable words. The spaces between the lines on the treble staff, for example, are F, A, C, and E: FACE.

4.Rhymes and alliteration: remember learning “30 days hath September, April, June, and November”? A hefty guy named Robert can be remembered as “Big Bob” and a smiley co-worker as “Perky Pat” (though it might be best to keep such names to yourself).

5.Jokes or even off-color associations using facts, figures, and names you need to recall, because funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than mundane images.

6.“Chunking” information; that is, arranging a long list in smaller units or categories that are easier to remember. If you can reel off your Social Security number without looking at it, that’s probably because it’s arranged in groups of 3, 2, and 4 digits, not a string of 9.

7.“Method of loci”: This is an ancient and effective way of remembering a lot of material, such as a speech. You associate each part of what you have to remember with a landmark in a route you know well, such as your commute to work.

 

Introduction

May 8 (CBS Early Show) Memory fades a little with age, but did you ever wonder why you’ve misplaced the keys, struggled to recall a name, or even remembered an event completely differently from someone else. Daniel Schacter, author of the book The Seven Sins of Memory explains how our memory fails us.

Daniel Schacter PhD, chairman of Harvard University’s Department of Psychology and a leading researcher on memory and amnesia, described seven sins of memory in his book:

1.      Transience: weakening of memory over time.

Many commercial memory improvement products rely on an overly elaborate system of imagery cues that are impossible to use in everyday life. Schacter suggests an alternative–simple images that relate what you wish to remember to what you already know. He also suggests active experiencing: Ask yourself simple questions about what you wish to remember. Some herbs, hormones, and genes can influence memory, though only slightly.

2.      Absentmindedness: breakdown between attention and memory.

If you often forget things at some point during your day, the problem is likely the cues you use. Good cues are distinctive and informative. Visual cues (When you see Bill, tell him about the meeting) are better
than time-based cues (Call me at 12:00), especially as you age.

3.      Blocking: thwarted search for desired information.

Most of us have had the feeling that the word or name we are searching for is on the tip of our tongue. Often, you are able to remember some letters of the word. Use them as a starting point. You can also try to recall similar situations in which you saw the person or used the word to help trigger memory. Avoid repeating words that sound similar; it will only prolong your search. Finally, be proactive and link images to the word or name before you are likely to need them.

4.      Misattribution: incorrect memory assignment.

Have you ever had the sense that you have seen or heard some bit of information before, even though it is entirely new? This is an especially common feeling among the elderly, who don’t expect to recall
specific details, but make recollections based on general feelings. Schacter suggests that you can combat misattribution by paying closer attention to the source of your ideas and not relying upon a general recollection.

5.      Suggestibility: implantation of wrong memories.

We are all vulnerable to the power of suggestion. Eyewitnesses to the same crime often give widely different accounts. Using simple, open-ended questions and avoiding promises, praise, rewards, or
expressions of disappointment or disapproval can all help reduce suggestibility. Avoid asking someone to take time and try and remember which can lead them to recall things that never happened.

6.      Bias: editing the past based on current experiences.

Seeing yourself in a positive light and another person negatively is a common bias. Another example is the habit of altering your recollection of the past to fit the present. An especially pernicious bias is
stereotyping and expecting someone to act or behave a certain way because of their age or race. While there are no shortcuts, bias can be limited through self-examination.

7.      Persistence: repeated recall of disturbing memories.

Repeatedly recalling a failure or trauma is common. For some it can become debilitating. You can fight repetitive memory by replacing counterfactual “what-if” with an explanation of the rationale for your
decision. Disclosing your feelings also helps to reduce persistent memories. Acknowledge, confront, and work through your intrusive memories. There are drugs and hormones that can reduce persistent
memories, but they only defer the need to work through your feelings.

Transience is the weakening of memory over time. In the book, there’s an extreme example. I was playing a round of golf. My partner hit a beautiful tee shot. I hit my shot and he teed the ball up again. He
forgot he hit his shot. The information faded out of his memory as quickly as it was put in. Now, it turns out he was in the early stage of Alzheimer’s.

A lot of people do worry that the misplaced keys or glasses could be Alzheimer’s. But, according to your book that kind of behavior is quite common. Define absentmindedness.

Absentmindedness is perhaps the most frustrating of all the memory sins. It’s the breakdown between attention and memory. And, the examples can be amazing. The great cellist Yo-Yo Ma once left his $2.5 million instrument in the trunk of a taxicab. Or, we’ve heard stories about people who’ve left a child in a car all day. It’s a failure of our memory to take in information and remind us. We need to be reminded. If
the reminder is there, you retrieve the information. It’s a failure to encode it initially. It happens when we go on automatic pilot and aren’t paying attention. It’s very common and not a sign of Alzheimer’s.

We all tend to go on autopilot during life’s routine rituals. You need to make use of effective reminders. It’s important to have sufficient reminders. A string tied around your finger is not a good reminder because it’s not specific. I speak with people all the time who write notes to themselves but can’t remember what they mean. In order for your memory to give you that cue you need, you need to plan for absentmindedness and become better organized.

We’ve been talking about sins of forgetting but what about memory errors? Remembering events differently than they happened. Just recently, former Senator Bob Kerrey’s memories of his service in Vietnam were called into question. What are the sins of memory failure?

That indicates three sins: misattribution, suggestibility, and bias. We’re all familiar with people remembering events differently. It happens because we often remember events not as they happened but as we think and feel now. As in the case of Bob Kerrey, everybody is doing his or her best to tell the truth, but it could be an example of bias. We tend to remember the past as it reflects our current knowledge and
beliefs. We tend to remember the past to fit the present.

Again, this can be misattribution–when people have a good general sense of what’s going on but are often at risk of not getting the details right. This can have very important consequences. Suggestibility can
also make eyewitnesses vulnerable to the power of suggestion. It can occur when people are asked to try and remember something.

There is very little hard evidence that they can improve memory. And you say the flip side of these memory troubles can help us–how? Because the flip side is memories that can help us remember important information. A persistent memory of a trauma can be debilitating but it can also help your survival.