Client Education

Memory Issues

Memory Aids

By: Denise Hamilton, Special to AccentCare

Some people keep lists. Others rely on Post-It notes scattered throughout the house, and some tie string around their wrists. These are just some of the homier ways that people create reminders or prompts for themselves.

And that? just fine if they help stave off the memory loss that comes naturally with age, says Dr. Skip Rizzo, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California's Andrus School of Gerontology, who has developed a more extensive way to stimulate memory.

Rizzo teaches his eight-week memory-cram course at senior citizen centers throughout Los Angeles County and is writing a training manual so others can teach it throughout the nation. The academic-style class includes a course outline, handouts and homework. And Rizzo starts with the eminently sensible notion that people shouldn't beat themselves up when they forget things.

"If you say, 'I'm losing it, this must be Alzheimer?, I'm getting old,' then that's going to affect your memory performance the next time around," Rizzo explains. "But if you say, 'I wasn't really trying, I'm going to try harder next time,' then it offers a ray off hope."

Rizzo, who formerly did cognitive rehabilitation with brain-injured people, says his approach is based on sound science. "When a person can?'tremember right, they get anxious, and anxiety works against fluid cognitive performance. When you let it go, it comes back in five or 10 minutes. The goal is to keep people motivated, so they understand that memory is a skill and if you do a little work, you can get better."

Rizzo divides memory aids into two categories: external and internal.

External includes the note on your door that says, "Don? forget to mail the letters." It also involves restructuring your environment, such as always putting your keys and glasses in one spot when you walk in the door.

Then there's visualization. "A lot of times, when you take your glasses off and you don? remember where you left them, it's because it's not on the forefront of your memory. You were thinking about something else as you did it or talking to someone," Rizzo explains. "You should say, 'I'm putting my glasses on the table.' That cues your own voice, forces you to think about it, visualize it."

Internal memory aids are divided into three parts that create imagery, form associations and organize memory. Rizzo points out that early works of literature were always composed in rhyme because it was easier to memorize rhyme in the oral tradition that preceded writing.

Acronyms are another trick, such as using an evocative word whose letters stand for parts of the whole. Likewise, little rhyming sayings can help us remember, such as "never eat shellfish in months with an R."

But Rizzo? favorite memory trick uses familiar spatial imagery and is derived from the ancient Greek orator Simoniedes, who developed a powerful tool for memory several millennia ago.

According to legend, Simoniedes was delivering a talk when a messenger came and called him out of the building. Just then, it collapsed, killing all inside and disfiguring them beyond recognition. Simoniedes was able to identify the dead by remembering who was sitting where and realized that location was a powerful tool for memory.

After that, orators began linking up topics with various locations around a room. For example, they'd look out a window and see fields and talk about farming. The sight of a soldier would cue them to discuss the military, and so on.

"That? where we got the saying, 'In the first place, I want to say this, and in the second place, I want to speak about that,' " says Rizzo.  "It has to do with location."

As a modern analogue, Rizzo suggests picking 10 locations in your home you can easily visualize. For him, it? the path he takes upon arriving home. First is his carport, second is his mailbox, then his stairs, the landing, the doorway to his apartment, the hallway table, the water cooler, the refrigerator, the sink and the toilet.

Rizzo asks class members to list 10 items to pick up at the grocery store. He creates a visual image of those items using the locations of his home as storing stimuli. And so Rizzo visualizes a giant tomato in his carport that he runs over, squirting tomato juice everywhere. When he opens his mailbox, a quart of milk spills on him. He walks up his stairs and steps on a banana, finds a giant Swiss cheese on the landing, a head of lettuce nailed to his door. And on and on.

"People say, 'Ooh, this is hard,' but it gets easier with practice. And it forces you to create images, form associations and do it in an organized fashion," says Rizzo.

Another memory trick is to create an associated image of the grocery list, which this time consists of say, Coca-Cola, kitty litter, fresh fish, apples and candy canes. So Rizzo creates a composite picture in his head: An aquarium filled with Coke, kitty litter lining the bottom like gravel, fish swimming inside, apples bobbing at the top and his nephew dipping in a candy cane, trying to catch a fish. Voila! A mental image that? hard to dislodge.

To remember people's names, Rizzo suggests that you repeat the name back when introduced:, "Hi, nice to meet you, Bob." If you know another Bob, visualize that person and link the names. In addition, look for something noteworthy or distinguishing about the person that allows you to form a strong mental image.

A person named Bill with a wide nose might evoke a duck's bill. Lillian might be frail, like a Lily. Grace might be unique, evoking the song "Amazing Grace." The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

There are also numerous books that offer tips, aids and exercises to stimulate memory. Rizzo says the classic is "The Memory Book" (Ballantine Books), a slim paperback by Harry Lorayne, who can be seen on late-night TV, hawking his videotapes on the same subject. Another is "Developing Your Super Memory," by Douglas Herrmann, a respected doctor who did work with retaining cognition after brain injuries.