As we grow into old age, at least half of us will develop memory problems, according to associate professor of psychiatry Ruth O’Hara. Although most memory impairments will not progress to Alzheimer’s disease, even minor problems can lead to a drop in quality of life. O’Hara points to a decrease in one’s ability to socialize, to sustain a bridge game, or to follow directions when taking medicine as examples.

Because there are no treatments for cognitive decline, including memory loss, prevention is paramount. O’Hara’s recent findings on mnemonic training may be one piece in the prevention puzzle.

O’Hara noticed during her graduate student days that research models of cognitive disorders often neglected the many aspects of aging that might impact memory function. O’Hara was motivated to make memory a research priority; over the years she has studied the subject from various angles, including examining the efficacy of memory aides.

In 1999, a research group led by Stanford professor of psychiatry Jerome Yesavage trained and memory-tested subjects above 60 years of age. Over two weeks, his team taught the men and women to use mnemonics to aid recall. For example, the subjects were told to envision a room familiar to them, perhaps their own living room. They were to think about the room in a certain order spatially: first the couch and coffee table in one corner, then the cabinet by the coffee table, and so on. Given a list of objects to memorize, they were to associate each object with the items in their room; for example, if the first object was “hat,” they would envision a hat on their couch.

Yesavage found that when tested, almost all subjects used the techniques they’d just learned, and that mnemonic training significantly improved recall performance.

Follow-ups are rare in this type of study, O’Hara says, but in this case she tested some of Yesavage’s original subjects again five years later. The subjects were not retrained or told to use the mnemonic techniques they learned from Yesavage.

About 40 percent of the subjects, now averaging almost 74 years old, reported using mnemonics again. The subjects who used mnemonics performed better in recalling words than they had five years previously, while those who did not use mnemonics performed worse. O’Hara’s results were published in the Oct 2007 issue of Journal of Psychiatric Research.

O’Hara believes continual booster sessions on mnemonic techniques could promote better retention, but she also cautions that these artificial settings, created for research purposes, might favor people whose memories were superior to begin with.

O’Hara’s quest to delve into the complex and mostly unexplored territory of human memory has led to fertile research ground. She investigates factors that could hinder recollection, such as genetic markers, stress and medical disorders (e.g. sleep apnea and insulin resistance), as well as techniques that could promote recollection, such as mnemonics and writing exercises. After years of work in the field, the many facets of the subject still fascinate her.

“Memory is a narrow term to define a very large entity,” O’Hara says.

Fore more information on this research, visit: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Ruth_O'Hara/
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