The Aging Brain

My younger daughter Susan is concerned about my brain. She doesn't think I'm going crazy, or have ever really been crazy, but she is concerned about the affect of aging on the cognitive powers of the brain.

I know words like cognitive because she comes out with words like that all the time. She's a speech language pathologist who encounters young and old people alike in pursuit of her practice. The older people can be suffering from swallowing disorders, strokes, as well as general dementia. Alzheimer's.

Her thoughtfulness is sweet, even though I assure her nothing much is different. A few short-term memory lapses, but a trip back into the room where I came from generally always works.

Since retiring, she's worried I'm becoming a couch potato. She tells me all I do is read newspapers and watch TV. Not really true, but that is generally what I'm doing when she sees me, so I'm guilty.

I don't find any TV to watch until the evening, generally sports, or the miniseries shows on PBS, BBC etc.  Her concern manifested itself this Christmas when I got, among other things, a book titled 'Keep You Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises to Help Prevent Memory Loss and Increase Mental Fitness.'

My extensive newspaper reading tells me the jury is still out on the ability of puzzles and other things to stimulate the brain. And this book has 'other things.'

• Turn pictures of your family, your desk clock, or an illustrated calendar upside down.

If you have a Picasso illustrated calendar, none of this may work however.

• Get a new cover or cushion for your chair.

I'm going to mark on the upside down calendar the number of days I'm giving myself to buy a new cushion.

I also got a Dr. Seuss book, 'You're Only Old Once.' This is the counterpart to the widely given 'Oh the Places You'll Go...' people give their recent family graduates. They do this so often the book perennially makes the bestseller lists.

'You're Only Old Once' is subtitled 'A Book for Obsolete Children.' It follows the path of an older man through a hospital maze of tests. The book coyly recommends buying the book for your kids, and then giving it to them on their 70th birthdays. My mathematical brain tells me the probability of this occurring is quite low. The book however ends optimistically. No co-pays are mentioned.

In my defense, I tell my daughter plenty of things I read in the paper about her work, and point out the articles she's too busy to find for herself. Thus, I act as a bit of a teacher/librarian. Always a parent.

I also point out that I keep a pad and pen at my side when I'm watching TV. Those English shows, 'Downton Abbey' in particular, are always coming out with references and words I never heard of. Because of the actors' accents I often use the close captioned option on the TV, along with the replay/ reverse options of the DVR player. Nearly everything I watch is from a DVR recording.

Using a DVR is of course great, since commercials and network promos and news teasers can be hopped over. They're not always eliminated however, leading one to assume for a few seconds that it's going to snow again, or there's another hurricane headed our way, when that was the weather report teaser from several days ago. Thus, I'm probably exercising my brain by constantly orienting my brain to current time, vs. past time.  I bet they don't have that one in the book.

Take the second episode of Season Four's 'Downton Abbey.' For an hour show, it was chock-a-block filled with references to things I quickly wrote down and looked up today.

• gannets; a fish capturing, plunging sea bird; a greedy person. The cook, Mrs. Patmore's description of the appetites of the upstairs guests.
• Damascene; pertaining to the city of Damascus; ornamental metal.
• Miss Lane Fox; a likely reference to an etiquette maven; a British Beatrice Fairfax.
• We're going to get stick; Lord Grantham's reference to being hit on the rear with a switch like a schoolboy unless he gets back to the party instead of quaffing booze from a decanter to steady his resolve.
• The Lady of Shallot; Reference to a Tennyson poem about a maiden who secretes herself in a castle, but eventually comes out to join the rest of the world.
• Stygian gloom; the Styx River; the underworld; gloomy, infernal, hellish, indistinct.
• Tyke; unpleasant, ill-mannered coarse man.
• High Cockalorum; self-important little man.
• Racing Demon; a card game played with a deck per person, with lots of players. Would seem like its rules are as incomprehensible as cricket, but it moves much faster.

I think I'll write my own book. It's got to be good for me.

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