Reversing Memory Loss: Proven Methods for Regaining, Stengthening, and Preserving Your Memory, Featuring the Latest Research and Treaments - Softcover

Mark M.D., Vernon H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039594452X ISBN 13: 9780395944523

Publisher: HarperOne, 2000

Synopsis

Written with warmth and clarity, this book belongs in the hands of anyone who has agonized over an aging friend or relative or worries about his own capacity to remember. No physical problem is as destructive or frightening as the loss of memory. Stress, pain, depression, overmedication, stroke, or Alzheimer's disease -- these are just some of the causes. In this fully revised and updated book, an internationally known neurosurgeon and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital outlines the latest treatments that help reverse memory loss: New forms of memory recently discovered by researchers, new tests to evaluate memory capacity, new research on the effects of prescription medications, including widely used antidepressants, and brain "poisons", new research on the important role of nutrition and exercise in promoting memory, advances in early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's, and promising new research on the regeneration of damaged brain cells.

About this title

About the Author

Vernon H. Mark, M.D., is a clinical associate in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. Peviously he was the chief of neurosurgery at Boston City Hospital.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION
Take Charge of Your Life
Are you having trouble remembering things? Do
the names of people you've met a dozen times suddenly
escape you? Do you ever come into a room to perform a
specific task and forget what you wanted to do?
You're not alone. Many millions of people share your
complaints, and hundreds of thousands regularly worry
that they're losing their memories (the first sign,
they think, that they're losing their minds), to the
point that they seek professional medical advice.
Let me reassure you that the overwhelming
majority of these complaints are not associated with
Alzheimer's disease or irreversible memory loss. Even
if you feel that your memory loss persists, you
should not become fearful that the meaningful period
of your life has suddenly ended. What you may need to
do is undergo medical testing to find out what's
wrong, then have the underlying problem corrected.
The important thing for you to keep in mind is that
many kinds of memory loss can be easily diagnosed and
treated.
As you'll learn, there are many different
kinds of memory, all of which are controlled by the
brain, and all of which are important. However, one
kind of memory is essential. It is at the center or
core of memory; indeed, it is at the core of your
being, representing the essential you, your
personality, your feelings. It is called vital
memory, and all other forms of memory are rooted in
this function.
Sometimes it's difficult to understand how
crucial vital memory is in our lives until we see
what happens when it's destroyed. In early 1990, a
woman testified before Congress about a weight-loss
program her forty-five-year-old husband had enrolled
in less than a year before. He had been about thirty
pounds overweight, and the weight-loss clinic put him
on a liquid diet that did, in fact, cause him to shed
his unwanted pounds. But one day when the man was out
jogging he suddenly had a stroke, the result of the
kind of diet he was on, which left him in a coma.
Even though he was at first paralyzed and unable to
speak, intensive therapy over a period of several
months improved his speech and arm and leg functions
to the point that he was almost normal. He was left,
however, with one critical deficiency: he had lost
his vital memory. He had lost all memory of prior
events, including who he was, who his wife and
children were, and what had been his hopes and dreams
for the future.
The man's wife was justifiably bitter.
Without his vital memory, she explained, he looked
the same, spoke in the same way, and did many things
as he had before. Yet he was only a shadow of his
former self-a Hollywood facade with no underlying
structure. When his vital memory had gone, all the
things that made him a unique individual also
disappeared. His body was rehabilitated; his mind was
not.
Such selective loss of vital memory following
a stroke is very uncommon. What this man's experience
illustrates, however, is not just that a stroke can
be tremendously debilitating, but that his stroke
could have been prevented with proper precautions.
Moreover, other kinds of memory loss, even those
associated with some strokes, can be reversed.
This book is about memory, but it is unlike
others that address the topic. Books such as Thirty
Days to a Better Memory, Business Success Through
Memory, and New Secrets of Improving Your Memory and
literally hundreds of others of the same variety are
clearly helpful to those of us who want to improve
intellectual capacity. But such improvements, nice as
they are, are trivial compared to preserving vital
memory and reversing the loss of our selves.
Vital memory is one of the most basic and
necessary functions of our brains. The cartoonist
Gary Larson captured the essence of vital memory in
one of his "Far Side" cartoons. An elderly man with a
stubble of whiskers wakes up in the morning. Beside
the man's bed is a large poster with block letters
reminding him, put your pants on before the shoes!
When you wake up each morning, do you know where you
are, who you are, and what the date is? Do you
remember what happened the day before, and how it
affected you? Do you have a general idea of how you
fit into your surroundings? Most important, do you
know what your plans and expectations for the
immediate future are the rest of the morning, the
afternoon, the evening, tomorrow?
If you retain your vital memory, you will
continue to be in charge of your own life. If you
don't, life will not have much meaning for you. You
become an object rather than a person, someone to be
taken care of. The less vital memory you have, the
more your individual freedom is compromised. As long
as you retain your vital memory you are a going
concern, no matter how old you are. Even if some of
your memory resources are reduced, or if your visual
or hearing memories are diminished, you'll still be
able to take care of yourself.
The reason I stress vital memory as the core
of your memory function is to give you some
perspective on your memory complaints. The more
superficial aspects of memory may be deficient from
time to time in all of us, you and me included. And
when you have problems such as difficulty in
recalling a name, forgetting the context of a
conversation, having an idea pop into your head and
leave just as quickly, you should not be unduly
alarmed as long as your vital memory is intact.
This book touches on a number of aspects of
memory and memory loss, but the subject of vital
memory is a recurring theme because it is relevant to
every facet of memory. In instances of memory loss,
we'll go into the diagnostic steps necessary to find
the root cause of the memory problem. More often than
not, a helpful treatment is available that is capable
of reversing the memory loss and many of the symptoms
that go with it.
Keep in mind, however, that human memory is
highly subjective and fragile. As you age, you may
begin to have some difficulty in remembering, for
example, names, particularly when your catalogue or
library of memories is very extensive. But if your
brain is free from disease or injury, your vital
memory should remain intact even into advanced old
age.
To make certain that you understand the
memory process, I want to discuss in a general way
the components of memory so that you can tell the
difference between the more and less essential
aspects of remembering. I'll also try to give you
some information that will help you enhance your
ability to remember, even if something has already
happened to you to decrease your memory.
I've been fortunate to participate in a
revolution in medical science which has brought about
major breakthroughs in treating people for loss of
vital memory. Thirty years ago I witnessed countless
numbers of persons who came to the hospitals where I
worked in search of cures for their memory
complaints, many of which we were then unable to
diagnose, let alone treat. Today a majority of
persons with memory problems can be helped. We now
know, with certainty, that not all memory loss is
permanent, and that there are specific treatments and
therapies that can have enormously beneficial results
in reversing many kinds of memory loss.

Copyright (c) 1999 by Vernon Mark and Jeffrey P.
Mark. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin
Company.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 039594452X
• ISBN 13: 9780395944523
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352