A Blog by Brian Lee Rouley

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Blogging Preserves Memory

One of my clients gave me a stack of information about memory, as in, how to preserve it. In one of those publications the point was made that maintaining social activity was one of many things one could do to keep the gray matter working well. This leads right into how computers have made so much socializing (albeit virtually) so much more possible.

To be continued....

So, it took me six days to find my way back to this topic. In the interim, I searched a bit for the proper title of this post, to allay fears of potential copyright violation. I've found that the phrase "Cognitive Impairment Is Not Inevitable" returns many results, so perhaps there is no problem with using this phrase as a title. That premise notwithstanding, I've already named this post more succinctly.

On with the show; there is some concern regarding the topic of cognitive impairment and I'm told that "mild cognitive impairment" is a phrase commonly used to describe elderly people during assessment. They are assessed as a part of the standard operating procedure of elder housing communities, whether that means independent, assisted living, or nursing homes or memory care communities. The point being that this impairment is pretty commonplace among the elderly and the premise of this article is that computer use can slow or perhaps reduce that deficiency. Much more research is in order, as usual, and this author intends to study the subject further, before posting much more about it.

Let me just say this. I am very interested in finding funding for research in this area. I would like to have the opportunity to work with people in a nearly completely uncontrolled study, to find if the use of computers and especially the use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, and any other "scrap booking" types of activity on computers will help to preserve memories, or even be the impetus for bringing memories to the surface for preservation.

At the risk of obviousness, allow me to point out the double-entendre here. A blog (the noun) might be a readily available place for some memory-rich person to share their experience with the world, while at the same time, blogging (the verb) might the the very activity that helps that same person to not lose the memories they have available to share with us. OK, so, blogging preserves memory and memories, the memory of the writer and their memories for the reader.

Recently, I met a lady named Blanche. My friend, Gene Shaw, told me that this lady's family moved to a different country each time a new child was added to the brood. Wouldn't you love to hear about that experience? I seriously want to know what it was like for a child to grow up in many different cultures. With some luck, I'll have a chance to chat with this lady again, and I'll ask her a few more questions. One of those questions will be: "Would you be willing to spend some time with me, so I can write down some of the memories you have about your childhood experiences?" If I get that chance, this blog will take a turn, for sure.

Until then, think of who you may know that should get on board with blogging. If you need any help getting started, or getting them started, look me up and ask me for help.

Brian Rouley
MouseHelp at Rouzell