[Health Channel/Comprehensive Report] An elderly man had a significant decline in memory and forgot the content of his conversation with a doctor for 15 minutes. Although he did not have dementia at the time, the doctor has assessed that he seems to be heading in that direction. This elderly man did not wait passively. Instead, he relied on learning new knowledge to reverse course and has not reached the stage of dementia in 5 years. Chen Xinmei, a family medicine physician, pointed out that the brain has different learning abilities at different ages. Even in your 60s and 70s, cognitive abilities may still improve by continuing to learn new things.
Chen Xinmei shared on Facebook "Chen Xinmei. Daily Life of a Female Family Medicine Physician" that an elderly man had obvious memory problems when he came to the outpatient clinic a few years ago. After the two people talk for 15 minutes, the elder will completely forget what they just said and ask the same question again. Therefore, it is recommended that the elder go to the neurology department for evaluation first. Although she had not yet reached the stage of dementia at the time of the assessment, the doctor felt that she might be developing in this direction. The elderly woman later proactively said, "I want to learn something!"
Chen Xinmei went on to say that this elderly man has been following her outpatient clinic for almost five years now. In these five years, not only has he not reached the stage of dementia, but his reflexes have even gotten a little better. In other words, memory changes with age, which does not mean that the brain loses its learning ability. Research has found that different ages have different cognitive advantages.
A well-known British study of London taxi drivers, who had to memorize complex London street routes, observed an increase in the size of the posterior hippocampus associated with spatial memory. You don’t have to memorize an entire city to improve your memory, and the biggest reminder from this study is that the brain changes as a result of learning.
●Learn fastest before the age of 18
A language study of 660,000 people and more than 1 million people found that the speed of learning grammar can be maintained until around the age of 18, and then starts to drop significantly, and the reaction speed almost peaks at the end of the teenage years.
●Those in their 20s remember best
A cognitive test of more than 48,000 people found that memory is best in the early 20s, and the white matter in the brain responsible for transmitting signals does not grow until almost 29 years old, so the brain is still upgrading after leaving society.
●Middle-aged people make the most accurate judgments
The study of 48,000 people also found that the ability to "judge someone's emotions just by looking at their eyes" is most stable between the ages of 40 and 60. And the vocabulary is still improving after the age of 50. This is why many people often say that experience increases as you get older.
●Learning from scratch in old age can maintain brain memory
A study observed 259 elders aged 60 to 90, and asked them to learn photography and quilting from scratch. They spent more than 10 hours a week for 3 months, and their memory tests improved accordingly.
Chen Xinmei concluded that for the elderly, they might as well start with things they are interested in, such as learning AI tools, photography, flower arrangement, painting or other new skills. You don’t have to ask yourself to learn it in one go. The key is to be willing to try and practice continuously to keep your brain exposed to new things. As you learn new things, your brain will improve and it's never too late.
