In This Issue:

1. Senior Moments
2. Facts About Aging and Mental Health
3. Tips to Keep Your Brain Healthy
4. What is Cognition?
5. Internet Resources

"Senior Moments" is SAFE Aging's September theme of the month. We describe senior moments and who get them besides seniors, provide health tips, facts about aging and mental health, and the benefits of Vitamin B and mental health.

1.  Senior Moments

Have you experienced a time in your day when you and your brain suddenly feel  disconnected? Perhaps momentarily, you

• could not remember your own address or zip code?

• could not recall where you put the keys?

• forgot the names of a grandchild or maybe a dear friend?

• could not remember what you planning to do in the kitchen?

• lost your train of thought while speaking?

• forgot your credit card pin number just when you needed it?

• forgot a telephone number you call every day?

• forgot an appointment?

You might have laughingly described or heard others humorously describe such lapses as "senior moments". Explaining memory lapses as "senior moments" is a way to provide an acceptable excuse for the momentary loss of words. But, such an excuse unfairly targets seniors, as it assumes senior senility happens. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Momentary brain lapses can happen to people of all ages. Lapses can happen for many different reasons, including any one or combination of the following:

Health Tips

1. Enjoy your life. Accept that with normal aging, brief momentary memory lapses can and do happen from time to time. As long as momentary brain disconnects don't bother you, aren't seriously affecting your lifestyle, or aren't causing a safety risk, accept it as an interesting aspect of getting older.
    

2. If having memory lapses are seriously interfering with your daily life or safety, talk to your doctor about it without delay.

Ø Back to Top

2. Facts About Aging and Mental Health

The Not's Have It

With aging, there is a risk of losing some but not all mental abilities.
Losing mental abilities is not an inevitable aspect of getting older.
Dementia is not an inevitable aspect of getting older.
Alzheimer's is not an inevitable aspect of getting older.
Loss of memory is not inevitable aspect of getting older.

Health Tips

• Get moving! Get or stay fit! (Yep, this is for brain health!)
   

• A healthy aging brain will continue to form new nerve cells and synapses. This means learning can and does continue throughout life. To help this along, workout your brain by keeping your brain active and find new things to learn about.

For more information, take a look at our May, 2006 newsletter: Cognition: Vital Skills for Independent Living (PDF)

Fitness and flexibility are great for brain health for all ages. Exercise
adds oxygen to the blood.

• increases blood flow and brings more oxygen to the brain

• improves memory and overall mental performance

Ø Back to Top

3. Tips to Keep Your Brain Healthy

1. Allow extra time to learn something new.
    
2. Read, talk and think out loud.
    
3. Repeat new information out loud to retain storage of memory.
    
4. Use mnemonic techniques.
    
5. If vision is limited, use memory cues, by recording your lists of things to do. (Use memory cues by writing things down on lists, notes, calendars)
    

MYTH: All adults lose their mental abilities (cognition) as they age.
 

Ø Back to Top

4. What is Cognition?

The mental processes we use to know things, together are called cognition. It is what enables us to think, remember and reason, and to live a purposeful life. These mental processes include the following:

• ability to learn new things

• language

• attention

• perception

• ability to plan and carry out tasks

• intuition

• judgment

• language

• remembered skills

When these skills are impaired, the ability to live independently can be seriously at risk. Should difficulties be noticed in any of these areas, a doctor should be consulted.

Take Your Vitamins

Vitamin B12 deficiency is known to cause cognitive impairment and dementia in elderly individuals. Vitamin B12 supplements (including folic acid, vitamin B6 and Vitamin 12) are known to help prevent cognitive decline, and dementia, cardiovascular disease. The right amount of vitamins can be really good for your health. Large-scale prevention trials of vitamin B supplementation are lacking, however. So, if this interests you, be sure to talk to your doctor about it, before taking any new vitamin supplements. This is especially true if you are also taking any prescribed medications or over the counter medicines.

Ø Back to Top

5. Internet Resources

• http://trans.nih.gov/cehp/HBPdietary.htm

• http://www.cdc.gov/Aging/pdf/TheHealthyBrainInitiative.pdf

• http://www.safeaging.com/newsletter/May06newsletter.pdf

Ø Back to Top

Enjoy our newsletter?

Then get it delivered to your inbox every month, for free!

Simply visit any page on our website (www.safeaging.com) and enter your email address in the "Join Our Mailing List" sign up box. It's that easy!  SAFE Aging will never share your information with other companies--confidentiality is assured. Refer your friends, families, and associates too!

Ø Back to Top

Wherever You Go! 
Carry Your Medical & Emergency Info!
www.MedicTag911.com

MedicTag is a portable digital medical alert device that plugs into a computer or laptop USB port and provides instant access to vital emergency info when needed the most.

ONLY $34.95 + s/h

No annual fees!

Ø Back to Top

Article Submissions

We invite interested authors to submit theme based articles for the SAFE Aging newsletter. Please send submissions in either .doc or .rtf format, Arial 10pt. font, and with a 300 word maximum. Articles should be written in an easy to read format to meet the needs of a varied readership including seniors, family members of seniors, caregivers and other senior service providers.  

Topics should in some way be related to health, safety or injury prevention. Articles may not be an advertisement for services and must be informative or helpful. Author photo and contact information may be included. 

There is no guarantee that submitted articles will be published. Generally, articles will be held until the appropriate monthly theme. All articles become the property of SAFE Aging and are subject to editing.

We now have advertising opportunities based on monthly, semi-annual or annual advertising rates. Please contact newsletter@safeaging.com for details.

Ø Back to Top