I’m in a bit of a tough situation now, as many people my age seem to be. My only surviving parent, my Mom, is having a very difficult time keeping track of her memories. This isn’t unusual but it is painful just the same. Here are some tips for you that might help with the problems that people with senility encounter.

As you probably know, long term memory isn’t usually the problem. Older memories seem to migrate to another portion of the brain over time (think backing up your hard drive) and they are kept safe from the ravages of pre-senile dementia. It’s the current or short-term memories that get lost. For example, my mother calls frequently asking about things like bank books and long-lost relatives. Each time she calls I explain the situation. Each time she seems to understand. Each time she is very anxious until I explain the situation. It’s sad and difficult but it’s all a part of growing old for some people.

We came up with a fairly simple idea to help my mother remember things a bit better. At a local dollar store we picked up a photo album, the kind with the sleeves to hold the pictures. There were only about twenty-four pages and the clear plastic sleeves were about 5.5 x 5.5 inches. As we already had a fair idea about what she was having trouble remembering, we wrote out little points for her to read about. These included a short history of the family, seeing as how she forgot how she got her current last name, and details about where she had lived in the last few decades, family names and the names of her grand and great-grandchildren, that sort of thing.

In each slot, we also printed up some nice background paper with flower patterns and matching colours. Besides the text, we also included some photos complete with names which identified the people in them. As time goes by we will add details to this scrapbook, keeping it up to date for her. It seems to be working quite well, I think. She discovers it each morning and reads it cover to cover. When she calls now, she seems to remember things from the book. Of course, and this is important to make clear to the person you do this with, everything is absolutely true. Because a memory seems real and valid, you must ensure that everything in the book is factual and you must remind the person, almost to the point of insane repitition, that what is in the book is completely true, no matter what her memories tell her.

Another idea that might help is if you attempt to explain what’s happening to the person. Think of 500 First Dates for this. If you can explain that the person’s memory is playing tricks on them and that it’s scary but completely normal for some people, then the anxiousness is abated somewhat.

The second idea that might help, specially if you live close to the person you are trying to help, is to keep a day to day diary, something with big squares to fill in the day’s events. Yesterday, for example, my wife and children visited my mother. When she called me that afternoon, she insisted that they hadn’t been there. With the diary, I could easily point out that they had been there and what had happened. While she knew that the flowers they had brought came from us, she could not remember the visit. The diary would have helped. Unfortunately, we live about 250 KM away. Don’t worry, my brother is within a mile or thereabouts and my Mom is well taken care of.

The hi-tech part of this is simply the photo and text printing. You could also use an iPad or tablet or simple computer application for this as well but the person, of course, would have to be computer literate. The kernel of an idea is here. See if you can work out the specific details, depending on your situation.

Thanks for reading! Comments are welcomed.