What can anybody tell me about memory loss? Thee are 2 people that come to my shop that have standing appointments every Friday morning. One has been going there for under a year. She had a stroke shortly before she starting coming here. She has trouble remembering things like my name and what happened the week before.
The other woman has been going to the shop (same standing appointment) for years. She is starting to forget things like the names of the girls who work there and other things like that.
I’d like to know how they can forget simple things yet remember that they have an appointment. My co-workers are curious, too.
MaryAnn, it looks like the first woman has short-term memories, but she has trouble consolodating that memory into long-term memories. I don’t know why she would remember appointments, though. Maybe she has it written somewhere where she sees it every day, or something to that effect.
The second woman seems to be suffering short-term memory loss also, but you pointed out that she has been coming in for years, so her long-term memory looks to be unaffected which is why she’d still be able to remember appointments. As to why she might be forgeting names of people, I’ll venture a guess. There are two types of long-term memory: reflexive and declarative. Reflexive memory is automatic and does not require conscious processes for recall. Motor skills and procedures are examples of this. I think maybe coming in every Friday for years might have made her appointments a reflexive memory.
The other type of long-term memory is declarative memory where conscious attention is needed for recall. Comparing things and evaluating the environment are examples. I think identifying a name would fall under this. If declarative memories are repeated long enough, they can be transferred to reflexive memory. I think it’s possible she has something wrong with declarative memories, but I don’t know if declarative memory can be affected seperately from reflexive memories or something like that.
I don’t know if each type of memory is associated with different parts of the brain where one part could be deteriorating due to old age or what.
I don’t know if these woman actually have anything wrong with the memory systems I listed above. I was just making inferences on what might be the case for each. I might be totally wrong, but at least you learned something new today.