Ops-Normal.org

Chatting with my daughter on the phone yesterday I couldn't for the life of me recall the name of the gas that goes into party balloons. I knew it began with a "H", so searched my memory banks for H words. Wasn't hydrogen or heroin, hydrangeas, honey or herrings. It wasn't for another four hours before the word Helium popped into my memory.

Noticed this seems to happening more often these days. What may have happened once every month or so now seems to be happening a few times a week. This inability to recall particular words. Living alone there is no one to tell me I am losing it, so being of an engineering mind I decided I need to measure this apparent deterioration.

Initial thoughts are it needs to be computerised with perhaps 50 questions in a database and in general multi-syllable single word answers. Answers which I know but rarely crop up in daily conversation. The questions mustn't assist in providing the answer - no multi choice approach.

The questions would need to be selected and presented in a random order and the response timed - perhaps 30 seconds per answer. To prevent the possibility of just taking the test when at ones brightest it needs to be on specific days like the first and fifteenth day of each month.

If I do have difficulty remembering a particular word in the normal course of a conversation then I should be able to add a question relating to it to my question database. Being able to easily add new questions to my question database could lead to a couple of hundred questions over time, leading to a real test of memory. Each User would have their own question and answer database, and their results would only be accessable to them alone.

A first pass at questions I might use are:

Study of environmental factors in health - Epidemeology
Material first transistors were made of - Germanium
Capital of Iceland - Reykjarvik
The gas used for party balloons - Helium
The main active ingredient in Turmeric - Curcumin
Suburb I lived in Leeds in 1968 - Lidgett Park
The material used in many modern batteries - Lithium
The flower used in the street name where I lived in Johannesburg - Abelia
The airport in Berlin I used to fly into - Templehof
The amino acid that assists vasodilation - Arginine
The name used for relationships between different life forms - Symbiotic

The system should be able to store an individuals results and collate them. Being able to state "Last year you had 90% correct, this year only 88%". It's very early days for this project so any ideas and thoughts are more than welcome.

Alison

I'd give you a hard time on the spelling of some of those... epidemiology, Reykjavik, Tempelhof...

... but I know what you mean. There are certain words that I find myself wanting to use, and they won't appear, like
- articulate (as in "speaks well)
- hydrangea (that thing outside the front door)
- that other word, you know, the one I can't remember...

And as for people's names: I'm hopeless. I never forget a face, but I have great trouble remembering a name, which can be very embarrassing sometimes when shaking hands at a church door and wanting to introduce two people to each other. Tell me the name, and I can picture the face every time. Something to do with the brain wiring, I think, and yes it's getting worse.

Alison

You are not the only one. Although I hope I as sharp as you in 20 years time
but with how I am at present, I doubt it.

Quote "What may have happened once every month or so now seems to be happening a few times a week"

You are lucky then, sometimes it happens a couple of times a day to me.

It's starting to happen to me too. Especially with names. Names I know and use in everyday activities, at work. I would say to myself "who was that email from?" And I would know who I mean, but for a while could not remember the person's name to be able and look up the email in the inbox. I've learned to let it go, and it comes a few minutes, or hours, later.

Keef wrote:I'd give you a hard time on the spelling of some of those... epidemiology, Reykjavik, Tempelhof

Thanks for that Keef. It does raise an interesting thought. Should it be marked as a fail if you spell your answer incorrectly? Could use a "sounds like" comparison but should a word that sounds like your answer fit the bill? Perhaps there are some parameters that determine the degree of fit.

Most probably go with multiple answers that are spelt differently. So a user would need to enter their questions and the answers, with two or three possible versions of the answer that involve potential spelling errors.

Alison

How do you overcome turning on the cold tap instead of the hot tap and filling up the whole sink before realising
and while waiting for the sink to fill, make a cup of coffee, go to drink it to find it is stone cold, having forgotten
to turn the kettle one !

Forgetting words and names happens to me on occasion and always has, even way back when I was but a pimply youth.

It doesn't appear to be getting any worse so I'm not worried.

But yes, it can be bloody annoying at times though!

I don't even remember faces. A very attractive young lady rushed up to me last month and threw her arms around me. We chatted for 10 mins whilst the boss was shopping. I was told later who she was, now I have forgotten her name again. Thought that we passed in the street the other day but didn't say hello in case it wasn't her!

I know, I will hug every young lady I pass in the street just to be sure.

The remedy is to do plenty of verbal puzzles like crosswords. Here in the uk we have various levels, some are simply word-for-word, others are cryptic, like the Daily Telegraph big crossword, and there is the Telegraph Toughie, which sometimes takes several days to complete. I also do the codeword and the Sudoku, and am proud of my success at the tough and diabolical levels. I never give up, if I make a mess of it I simply copy the original onto squared paper and try again. Keep the brain active.

For a while now I've been worrying about not being able to remember things e.g. in the morning what did we have for dinner last night...and then it comes to me after I've recalled the meals of a few days before yesterday. Also I have to make sure I take my inhaler before I do anything else in the morning and physically say to myself 'I've taken my inhaler'...otherwise sometimes I'm not sure if I have taken it. Like Alison I can remember the first letter of a word or more likely I can remember the first letter of a person's surname and that's all and out of the blue some hours later I spout the name forth in an entirely unrelated conversation or whilst watching TV. However anything to do with numbers like telephone numbers and multiple card pins then I'm almost faultless.

My Doc said to me last week that all that isn't too much of a concern....the real problem comes when you don't know that you are forgetting things but others notice that you are. Made me feel better that did!

well, guys, that's what the "Two last letters start the next word" is for!

Yup-hubs and I do it all the time.
"I saw whatshername today"
"Who?"
"You know, the one who used to live with whatsit?"
"You don't mean her who used to work with thingy?"
"No, the other one"

A very attractive young lady rushed up to me last month and threw her arms around me.

Some years ago I was standing in the shoe department of a large multi floor store, while The Wife shopped for something (probably shoes). I had mentally dropped back into stand-by mode (any husband will know about this) when the same thing happened as above, except whilst hugging me the young lady kissed me passionately. I might add the passionate kissing is fairly common here in Catalunia, even when you have only met once before. However I was taken aback as I couldn't immediately remember who the young lady was.* I found it worrying.

Since then I have forgotten far more faces and so worrying about who is kissing me has become far less of a problem. I just accept it. So the motto is: don't worry about it.

*The lovely Yolanda, a fitness instructor from the gym I belonged to at the time. The fitness instructor from the gym I now belong to isn't quite so passionate.

My current cause for concern is that when I'm typing I've begun to sometimes scramble the letters up and put thme in teh wrong odre.
Then I have to go back and rearrange them.

It doesn't happen with handwriting though.

Happens to everyone over 40, Blacksheep.

I've got an autocorrect in MS Word for teh -> the, slef -> self, and a few more.

At a rather important drinkies party I was in charge of a group to present to the principal. I had them stand in alphabetical order, spent days rehearsing their names particularly their wives. Got it all right until I came to my (now ex wife) and had a complete mental block. Said 'err this is my wife'.

I never forget a face but sometimes the name. The lady who hugged Exascot is Dimiri who is a camp manager!

I seriously wouldn't worry too much. We've all done the thing of wandering into the lounge from the kitchen and thinking, "Why did I come in here?" The answer is something the shrinks call 'event closure'. When you leave the kitchen, the act of leaving it causes the brain to turn over a page so to speak. Some things get left behind in the kitchen IE - What you left it for! Very common.

Names/people etc is all dictated by a particular area of the brain. It's kind of 'you've got a big one or you ain't'.

Charlie16 has got it nailed (or his doc has!).

the real problem comes when you don't know that you are forgetting things but others notice that you are.

We have a very good friend in Greece who is a retired postman and addicted to crosswords particularly to the cryptic ones. His general knowledge is vast. Sometimes over a beer we try to think of as many ways of describing the same thing; fun and keeps the old grey matter exercised!