Page 29 - The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss and Enhance Memory Power

Page 18

Plan your daily schedule
in advance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Use mental repetition 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Associate items with
other things 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Keep things you will
need in a prominent
place so as to notice
them 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Interpret Your Score

Now that you've completed this questionnaire, it's time to check the results. The first section, General
Frequency of Forgetting, covers a number of areas that people commonly worry about with their
memory. You can add up the total score and then divide by the number of items (eighteen in the first
section) to get an average score on the 1 to 7 scale. If your average score is in the 1 to 2 range, your
memory as measured by this scale is very good. If your average score is in the 5 to 7 range, then
clearly these memory problems are interfering with your daily life.

If you have trouble remembering words or things that people tell you, you have poor verbal
memory— information coded as words in the brain is not retained and retrieved well. In most people,
verbal memory depends on proper functioning of the left half of the brain. If you scored 2 to 5 (or
higher) for trouble remembering where you put your keys or losing your way when going to a place
you've been before, your visuospatial or three-dimensional (3-D) memory is not up to the mark. In
most people, this type of “nonverbal” memory depends on proper functioning of the right half of the
brain.

The second part of the questionnaire evaluates the use of mnemonics and related techniques.
Using mnemonics to compensate for a memory deficit may indicate a problem, but if you
consciously use mnemonics to improve a basically sound memory, then scoring high on this part of
the questionnaire doesn't mean very much. So the mnemonics section is harder to interpret than the
first section.

There are other problems with all self-administered questionnaires of this type. Some worrywarts
with an excellent memory will give themselves terrible scores, while others who blithely report no
memory complaints on this questionnaire may score poorly on objective tests. So the self-
administered memory questionnaire requires follow-up with objective memory tests in order to get a
true picture.