Book Review: Remember

After watching Still Alice again and reading Every Note Played, someone mentioned Lisa Genova's book, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. I must not be alone in my fears over dementia's beckoning call. It felt like Genova was specifically trying to put readers' minds at ease over the normal memory glitches we all routinely experience. In this book, she shares tips and pointers, things like pay attention, make a mental picture to accompany what you are trying to remember, enhance the meaning, and attach a location to the memory. 

Furthermore, she encourages practical steps (many I had heard before): fuel the body with appropriate foods, get sufficient sleep, learn new things, and reduce stress when you can. Over and over, she differentiates between normal memory lapses and dementia-level lapses. I still think I exhibit some dementia-level lapses, but I will try to keep positive. I'm doing what I can to stave it off, but God knows whether I will succumb to the same end as my mother.