Older Adults can Now Eliminate Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness is a normal part of aging and is seen to  be a common complaint among older people. But a latest finding comes as good news to those older people who worry about being forgetful.

The study, conducted by scientists at the Baycrest Health Science Rotman Research Institute and the University of Toronto's Psychology Department, has found convincing evidence by which older people can eliminate forgetfulness and perform like younger adults on a memory test.

In this study, the scientists used a technique known as distraction learning strategy. This strategy was used to help older adults overcome age-related forgetting and boost their performance to the level of younger adults.

Prior to this, there were studies which showed that older brains are skilled at processing irrelevant information in the environment without conscious effort.

"Older brains may be doing something very adaptive with distraction to compensate for weakening memory," Renee Biss, lead investigator and PhD student was quoted as saying in Medicalxpress. "In our study we asked whether distraction can be used to foster memory-boosting rehearsal for older adults. The answer is yes!"

The study involved participants from the University of Toronto. The test was conducted on healthy younger adults of the age group 17-27. The healthy older adults belonged to the age group 60-78. The healthy older adults were given a list of words and were asked to study it and reproduce the same after a short delay and repeat the same in a surprise test that was conducted after a gap of 15 minutes.

It was noticed that during the delay period, half of the studied words occurred again as a distraction while people were doing a very simple attention task on pictures. The repetition of words as distracters had no significant impact on the memory performance of young adults. But the same boosted the older adults' memory by 30 percent.

According to Bliss, the finding suggests the possibility of using relevant distractions as memory aids for older adults, reports Medicalxpress.

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.