Dear Husband gave me a copy of an email article he received about Cognitive Aging. I read it and set it aside to use as the basis of a blog post. Now I can't find it. A sure sign of cognitive aging. But at least I am not worrying about it being a sure sign of Alzheimers' Disease which I might have before I read the aforementioned article.
So here I sit aging cognitively...which is not necessarily a bad thing. At least as conmpared to the generally accepted alternative. We toss around the diagnosis "Alzheimers" like it was as common as a cold. When we were in our 20's if we lost our car keys it was annoying. Now it is a sign we are doomed to a fearsome future. When we were young and couldn't remember names or dates or phone numners we considered ourselves too busy to try to remember... Now we depend on our phone or tablet to remember for us and don't even try to keep track of information. Does laziness cause memory loss? Or worse?
The point of the article was that aging results in a normal decline in cognition. Mental speed and agility decline with age. But wisdom and experience increase as we get older. It's easier to misplace an important paper or the car keys but you know exactly what they are , what they are for and why you need them. Unlike with Alzherimer's, cognitive aging does not progress to a terminal neurological state. It does, however, keep us occupied looking for all the things we have lost.
So here I sit aging cognitively...which is not necessarily a bad thing. At least as conmpared to the generally accepted alternative. We toss around the diagnosis "Alzheimers" like it was as common as a cold. When we were in our 20's if we lost our car keys it was annoying. Now it is a sign we are doomed to a fearsome future. When we were young and couldn't remember names or dates or phone numners we considered ourselves too busy to try to remember... Now we depend on our phone or tablet to remember for us and don't even try to keep track of information. Does laziness cause memory loss? Or worse?
The point of the article was that aging results in a normal decline in cognition. Mental speed and agility decline with age. But wisdom and experience increase as we get older. It's easier to misplace an important paper or the car keys but you know exactly what they are , what they are for and why you need them. Unlike with Alzherimer's, cognitive aging does not progress to a terminal neurological state. It does, however, keep us occupied looking for all the things we have lost.
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