Page 17 - The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss and Enhance Memory Power

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1. The large number of middle-aged people, mainly baby boomers, who currently have a normal
memory and wish to preserve their memory as they grow older.
2. The smaller number of people with mild memory loss, middle-aged and older, who would like
to reverse the process or at least prevent further decline in their memory.

You Can Prevent Memory Loss Now

The baby boom generation has an overriding concern— even obsession— with quality-of-life issues.
They are doing everything possible to prevent the aging process, including memory loss, from taking
hold of their lives. To help maintain peak physical and mental function, a balanced diet and a fitness
program have become the dual mantra for tens of millions. And as the baby boomers age, they will
dwell even more on maintaining optimal physical and mental health.

By the year 2025, over eighty million baby boomers will have entered the zone of Social Security
and Medicare, and there will be two people over sixty-five for every teenager in the United States.
As the population ages, awareness about the importance of living well and not just living longer has
led to growing concern about several conditions that were widely believed to be “subclinical’’ and
hence unimportant. These include mild symptoms of arthritis, depression, and memory loss, which
are extremely common in the general population. Community surveys show that mild memory loss is
present in 1 to 10 percent of people between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five, and in 10 to 40
percent among those sixty-five to eighty-five years of age. Nearly half the middle-aged and elderly
people living in the United States worry about their memory, and objective testing has confirmed that
subtle memory loss is indeed widespread. Memory is the mental function that declines the most
rapidly as we grow older, and this huge public health problem will mushroom in the decades to
come.

Do You Need the Memory Program?

If you have a reversible cause of memory loss that can be recognized and treated effectively, such as
depression or vitamin deficiency or hormonal abnormality, a “cure” is possible. But for the more
com-