The 81-year-old chief policy and education officer for the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) in Halifax also holds volunteer board positions with a number of other groups, all while helping his wife’s business.
Despite his active lifestyle, VanGorder acknowledges that his memory as an octogenarian isn’t as sharp as it used to be.
“I’m very involved in theatre … and I find that learning lines is not as easy as it was 40 years ago,” he said. “I used to be able to read a script over and over and commit it to memory. I now find that, in learning my lines, I have to write them out.”
VanGorder, 81, is the chief policy and education officer for the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. (Submitted by Bill VanGorder)
Many people assume that memory degrades as people grow older, but Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) psychology professor Natasha Rajah says oftentimes, the ability to retain memory remains intact in old age. However, it can become harder to remember certain things as our aging brains influence what we recall and how we retrieve information. Episodic memory, which holds our unique past personal experiences, is more sensitive to memory loss with age, she added.
What happens to memory as we get older?
Rajah, who is also Canada Research Chair in sex, gender and diversity in brain health, memory and aging at TMU, says there’s some debate about when memory decline begins.
Some researchers believe that the decline begins between 20 to 40 years old, with a steeper decline in older age.
“My research has shown that [episodic memory] remains relatively stable until midlife, and then starts to slowly decline at midlife and then accelerates in older age,” Rajah told The Dose host Dr. Brian Goldman.
Rajah says there’s variation in when memory decline happens and to what extent it takes place. (Submitted by Natasha Rajah)
While episodic memory tends to decline, Rajah says there’s evidence that semantic memory — facts and knowledge — actually improves with age, “because we’re acquiring new world knowledge.”
Source memory, which represents the ability to remember perceptual, spatial and temporal details about past experiences, is also sensitive to the effects of aging.
For instance, a person might remember attending a friend’s birthday, even if that same person might have trouble remembering when the party began or ended.
Item memory, which allows us to remember someone when we meet them at the grocery store, for example, remains intact into older age, according to Rajah.
Memory and the aging brain
Like many other organs, the brain’s physical structure changes as people grow older.
“When we are young, it does have a greater capacity to, just like the rest of our body, form new cells, form new connections,” said Teresa Liu-Ambrose, a physical therapy professor and Canada Research Chair in healthy aging at the University of British Columbia.
As people age, their brains become more precise and begin a process called pruning — where the brain prioritizes neuronal connections to enable essential skills and essential memories that individual people cultivate over time, according to Liu-Ambrose.
Liu-Ambrose emphasizes the importance of physical activity in maintaining brain health (The University of British Columbia)
Additionally, the brain loses mass.
The hippocampus, a key cerebral structure involved in converting short-term memories into long-term memories, shrinks over time beginning around the mid-to-late 50s, according to Rajah.
The prefrontal cortex — important for encoding and retrieving memories — also declines with age, typically around the age of 30, according to Rajah.
“That said, we do also know that the brain’s capacity to keep changing over time is retained,” said Liu-Ambrose.
What this ultimately means is that it becomes harder to remember certain memories, but most people with healthy brains maintain the ability to form new memories and learn new skills.
Dementia versus normative aging
Rajah says there are “profound” differences between memory decline due to normative aging and conditions like dementia.
“[Neurodegenerative diseases] affect the activities of daily living,” she said. “Like if you take a car and you get lost while driving because you can’t navigate your way back home.”
Someone living with Alzheimer’s disease experiences a decline in episodic memory, as well declines in semantic memory and an overall decline in executive function.
WATCH | Every time Biden’s memory is criticized in classified documents report:
Every time Biden’s memory is criticized in classified documents report | About That
16 days ago
Duration 8:57
A newly released special counsel report found that U.S. President Joe Biden ‘willfully retained and disclosed’ classified material after leaving the vice presidency, but that criminal charges were not warranted. Andrew Chang breaks down the report, and its repeated references to Biden’s ‘significantly limited’ memory.
“It won’t just be memory … there might also be some language difficulty and word-finding difficulty,” said Rajah, adding that the evidence of memory degradation typically gets worse as the illness progresses.
In contrast, someone experiencing memory decline due to old age might momentarily forget where they parked their car, or have some trouble finding a word that’s metaphorically on the tip of their tongue.
“The tip of the tongue phenomenon actually does increase with aging,” Rajah said. “But what’s funny is that the memory is actually there.”
How can we improve our memory as we grow older?
Memory decline with age is common, but Rajah says there’s variation in when the decline happens and to what extent it takes place.
“There are people that are maintainers,” she said. “There’s people that decline steeper, and they’re called decliners, in the field.”
“And then there’s also people that show some average decline, but nothing notable.”
Rajah says maintainers typically have higher education, come from a higher socioeconomic status, often have a better diet and also exercise.
But she says anyone can work on maintaining their memory as long as they take steps to help their brains remember events — and if they work on their physical health.
Rajah says using a notebook, tablet or smartphone to organize daily tasks, setting reminders and alerts for things like medication and appointments, as well as relying on mnemonic devices like repetition to remember events can all help improve memory.
Liu-Ambrose emphasizes the importance of physical activity.
“A healthy body is a healthy mind,” she said. “Your brain doesn’t just stop at your neck. It’s fed by your heart, by your lungs. It’s a highly metabolic organ.”
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.
Bizarre Sunlight Loophole Melts Belly Fat Fast! is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.
