What Do We Gain By Training Our Memory?
There are so many studies that support the idea that there is little room for doubt: there is indeed cognitive decline associated with age. So what could we do to train our memory? Are there any advantages? Would they be short-term or, on the contrary, would they be maintained over time?
Age does not affect all people or all types of memory equally. It is better to preserve as much as possible procedural memory or that linked to distant and emotionally intense memories. On the contrary, working memory is perhaps the most compromised.
Problems with shared attention, forgetting recent events, misusing coding strategies, omitting or misusing verbal or visual cues to retrieve information have also been identified. As well as a negative perception of their own performance and their possibility of improvement. (Craik, 1977; Parkin, 1987; Montenegro 1998a).
In this article, we therefore ask ourselves the following questions: what can we gain by training our memory?
Is training so important?
The phrase “memory training” is a modern concept that has been known for centuries as the art of memory. Its first appearance dates from Simonides de Céos (Siglo Va. De C.) and the method of Loci.
Later, other authors used terms such as “artificial memory” and “natural memory”, or “memory with images”, “memory linked to magic and to philosophical and ideological contents”, etc.
Memory training shows beneficial effects in both healthy older people and older people with cognitive impairment. Currently, there are many interventions aimed at maintaining memory such as rehabilitation, stimulation and training.
In 1970, various programs and studies focused on memory formation began to deal with loss due to trauma, early stage dementia, aging, etc.
Different interventions are used in current interventions, such as stimulation. Group therapy, rehabilitation, relearning or computer rehabilitation.
The use of certain tools or others depends on the needs of the person, but also on the means and knowledge of the professional.
Differences between rehabilitation and training
The two most common terms are rehabilitation and training. The training consists of teaching in a systematic way the knowledge, use and control of the processes, strategies, techniques and experiences involved in the operation and in the improvement of its performance.
Rehabilitation intervenes in order to regain an optimal level of functioning (personal, social and professional) after a certain illness which has caused an injury or a functional deficit.
Rehabilitation is therefore used with sick people and training is a term that can be applied to sick and healthy people. Training is also used in people with conditions which, while not a disease, “may be the subject of clinical attention”.
How to train our memory?
Training can be classified according to several criteria (Montejo Carrasco, 2015):
- The content that works and the proposed objectives : single or multi-factor
- The number of people you work with: individual or in a group
- The type of strategies used: internal strategies (visualization, association …), external strategies (notebooks, colors, hangers, order …), and those which use elements of both types or mixed (most methods)
- The type of memory used: explicit / implicit
For the elderly, we generally opt for group training. This not only strengthens memory, but also the social context, in which the elderly also have to cope with significant losses. That of friends and acquaintances of the same generation.
This methodology is preferable because of group effects. In addition, in terms of investment, it is more profitable. You can work with more people in less time.
Train our memory
It seems that certain areas of our brain are able, with training, to accumulate a certain cognitive reserve which protects us against deterioration related to age.
In her day, neuroscientist Rita Levi-Montalcini said that “brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, remains constant throughout life; but also as long as the brain is exercising. ”
Thus, by training, we are making a profitable investment in the cognitive deterioration associated with age. The most optimistic data suggest that memory training could have a positive impact in 63% of cases and act as a protective factor in up to a third of Alzheimer’s cases.
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