If you or someone you know is dealing with symptoms of dementia, a doctor may very well bring up testing the patient with a neurological exam called the mini-mental state examination, or the MMSE. This test, also referred to as the Folstein test, is a questionnaire that is used by doctors to test cognitive impairment and to screen for issues such as dementia. It takes about ten minutes and can cover areas such as the person’s understanding of orientation, their memory recall and their arithmetic abilities.

The mini mental status examination is a simple test that can be used not only to screen for dementia and other mental issues, but it is also used over longer periods of time to determine the effectiveness of certain treatments. By tracking the patient’s responses and score of the test over a period of time, a doctor can determine whether certain medical treatments are working for the patient, and can assist in keeping progression of mental disorders at bay.

The MMSE will typically test certain concerns, such as one’s attention span, arithmetic calculations, memory recall, language abilities, ability to repeat spoken phrases, their orientation in terms of time and place, and their ability to perform certain commands, such as drawing a certain item or scenario. By assigning points to each of these tests and abilities, a doctor can determine the cognitive abilities of a patient in a short period of time, without having to rely on expensive technological tests such as CAT scans and MRIs.

There are many techniques one can count on in order to help them retain information and improve their ability to recall memories. In addition to periodic review of the data, visual aids and constant overkill of the information, you can also use something called a mnemonic device to help you recall information stored in your working memory.

What exactly is a mnemonic device? This is a technique that others use in order to remember long lists or a lot of commonly-grouped information in an easy-to-remember way. For example, you may have heard of the word VIBGYOR. This is a mnemonic device used to remember the colors of the rainbow. Each letter stands for a color–Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. You can also make a sentence out of the letters, a name, or anything else that helps shorten the information and makes it more memorable for you. This can be by using acronyms, phrases, rhymes, or any other type of learning aid that works for you.

Mnemonics are a great way to assist you in learning large amounts of information and help you retain and memorize it into your long-term memory. Instead of just using your short term memory to learn the information and later forget it, mnemonics can assist you in utilizing your long term memory for faster, easier retention of the data. This is a great way to remember life-long information.

In addition to using visual aids, acrostics, and other memorization techniques, mnemonics can be an excellent way to help you improve your memory and keep your brain working at its best!

If you find yourself having trouble remembering simple numbers, names, or events, you may be experiencing a little memory loss, especially if you are aging. This is a natural thing when you’re getting older, but it can be preventable. The importance lies in utilizing your brain’s ability to memorize, and keeping those areas of the brain sharp and focused throughout your life. By training your brain and taking care of your body, you can help improve your memory and prevent memory loss from taking over your life!
Here are some simple daily tricks you can use to keep your memory sharp and in tune:

• Exercise your brain—and your body. Regular aerobic exercise can improve the circulation of blood, and can improve your memory and alertness in general. You can also exercise your brain with word games, puzzles, and projects like Sudoku and crossword puzzles, which help you improve your memorizing and thought process abilities.

• Reduce stress and eat a healthy diet. Food and stress can be two factors in your life that might not automatically come into mind when thinking about your ability to think quickly, recall memorable events, or be at your peak performance mentally. By eating a healthy diet and reducing everyday stress, your body—and brain—will thank you!

• Find memorization techniques that work for you. Whether it’s working on forming better mental images, grouping like items together to make them easier to remember, or repeating tasks in order to solidify the steps in your mind, do what works for you when it comes to training your brain. Not everything works for everyone, so keep this in mind when teaching yourself memorization techniques and tricks.

No matter how you plan on training your brain, these simple steps can help leave you in a happier mental state regardless of your state of memory.

Keeping your mind active is one of the best ways to maintain a healthy memory and well functioning mind.

Brain games, puzzles, and daily mind exercises are an excellent way of giving your brain the workout that it needs on a regular basis.

Today’s activity focuses on subtraction and reversal. Although they may seem easy at first, these increasingly difficult mental tasks will test your cognitive abilities:

1. Beginning at 96, count backward, deducting 4 each time (96, 92, 88…)
2. Starting with the letter Z, recall the alphabet backward by skipping a letter (Z, X, V…)
3. Starting at 188, count backward, subtracting 13 each time (188, 175, 162…)
4. Beginning with the letter Z, recite the alphabet backward by skipping 2 letters (Z, W, U…)

Dates and times can be very elusive and many people tend to forget them frequently. It is a difficult task remembering all dates and times you’re supposed to attend such as your doctor’s appointment, an important meeting, or even your child’s day off in school. All you need is a few tips here and there, and you’ll never miss another date again.

Jot it down. Writing a list of future engagements will help you remember that you are supposed to be somewhere on a particular date. If you are invited to a party, commit it to memory and write it down. You can even go the extra mile and buy your host a present. You will not only make him happy, but you will be reminded that you are meant to be someplace for an event.

Pen and Paper. The good old-fashion note-taking tools will save you a lot of forgotten messages in a telephone conversation. Keep a pad of paper and pen near the phone so you’ll not miss any important information. Your phone is not the only thing that needs a handy pen and paper, but you yourself too. Have a small notebook and pen in your pocket always handy for unexpected use.

Mark it on a calendar. Calendars are there to inform you of dates, so use them to remind you of dates important to you. You can directly mark your calendars just as soon as you receive your appointment schedule. Write short notes on designated dates to remind you of their importance.

Plan it. Diaries or planners help you keep your schedule on the right track. You don’t really need a bulky planner, unless you need to have all those pages. A simple planner that has a calendar and space for notes is sufficient. What’s important is that it keeps your dates organized.

Use your cell phone. Take time to enter a short note in your mobile phone’s organizer for future use. You can also set an alarm in your phone’s calendar to remind you of an important appointment that includes the date, time and place.

Dates are insignificant if they don’t mean anything to you. But once they are associated with a person or an event, you can’t afford to miss them. Keep reminding yourself that somebody needs your presence and you need to be someplace important. Review your planner at least once each day and be conscious of personal matters.

Pressures of everyday life can affect your brain’s performance. You forget about that morning meeting, what you planned to get in the fridge, or where you left your keys. The good news is there are scientific breakthroughs to reverse memory problems. Here are some ideas to improve memory:

Oxygenate. Your brain needs oxygen in order to function well. Taking Iron supplements can greatly improve raising the oxygen levels in your blood and helps your brain cells to communicate well with each other.

Do Some Cardio. Increase your mental power by being physical. Cardiovascular exercises like aerobics or walking increase your brain’s volume and white matter, which contributes to better attention and memory processing.

Keep it down. Focus on what you’re currently doing, rather than multitasking. Although sometimes you need to multitask because of the amount of workload you need to get done, doing one thing at a time can help you retain more information. Rather than writing on a monthly report while paying your bills, finish one task first before entertaining another. This way, you’ll be able to give your undivided attention to a certain task and you’ll be surprised by the results.

Meditate. Stress can greatly affect your overall well-being. It can slow you down and can damage your brain cells, thus reducing your ability to retain information in the long run. By meditating, you can refresh your mind of unwanted information, and can help you focus on what’s really important. Meditation can give you a sharper memory and a quicker mind.

Regulate. Help your circulatory system by maintaining a good cholesterol level. This can improve your mental alertness and other cardiovascular functions. Unhealthy cholesterol builds up in your blood vessels and hinders proper blood circulation, thus robbing your brain of essential nutrients. This results to memory problems.

Munch or Drink. Eating a couple of apples a day or drinking two 8-ounce glasses of apple juice each day gives you the right dose of antioxidants to keep your memory sharp. Antioxidants in apples help retain your memory by protecting brain cells against damage from free radicals.

Verify. Make sure you talk with your doctor regarding the possible side-effects of the prescription and over-the-counter drugs you are taking. Antidepressants, sleeping pills, painkillers, antihistamines, and other drugs can increase memory loss, and tend to stay in your system for a longer time; especially as you get older. This increases the possibility of memory problems.

Play it. You can learn from your teenagers that video games are actually good for you. Games that are designed to improve your focus like Nintendo’s Brain Age could get your memory in shape. If video games are not for you, try brainteasers or puzzles. Your brain constantly needs fun, but challenging activities to keep it active and engaged.

Our brains are like muscles in our body; so the saying ‘use it or lose it’ is as appropriate for our brains as it is for our physical bodies. Just as we do not want our muscles to undergo atrophy, we do not want our brains turning to mush and our memory power diminishing by not exercising every day.

The more active our minds are, and the more we use our brains, both left and right, the better we are able to remember simple things like grocery lists, to-do items, daily chores, etc.

There are several things we can do every day to keep our minds and bodies sharp and in top form.

• Get some physical exercise every day. Physical exercise keeps our minds and bodies in top shape. Not only do we transform our outer shell, but our inner one as well.

• Try a crossword or sudoku puzzle. This will get our brains stimulated and sharp.

• Write lists. If you do have trouble remembering, keep lists where you can easily find them. You can write grocery lists, to-do lists, daily chore lists, etc.

• Do a jigsaw or 3D puzzle. This will stimulate both the left and right hemisphere of our brains.

• Watch a trivia game show. You may find that you know more than you think you do, and you may learn some new things!

• Drink your water. Water is important to keep us hydrated and for healthy brain function.

• Eat a balanced diet. A deficiency in nutrients can affect our brain power, and our memory. Eating right includes food from all the food groups.

• Learn a foreign language. What better way to stimulate your brain than to learn a new language?

• Write a story. Be creative and wild and write something totally ridiculous and funny. You are not looking to get your work published, you are looking to stimulate your creativity.

• Learn something new – take a flower arranging class, or learn to play the piano.

• Join a club – get involved in your community. Try social clubs, political clubs or service organizations.

• Develop a positive attitude – depression and negative attitude can have serious consequences for our minds and our bodies. Always try to think positive, no matter how dire you think your situation is.

• Go bird watching in a park and take binoculars and a bird handbook with you. Keep a notebook to jot down all the different birds you see.

The peg system is a very simple technique. A standard set of peg words are learned and items to be remembered are linked to the pegs with visual imagery. The system was developed by Henry Herdson back in the mid-1600s, who linked a digit with any one of several objects that resembled the number; for example, 1=candle, 2=trident.

The system got its name from the fact that peg words act as mental pegs or hooks on which a person ‘hangs’ the information that needs to be remembered. The peg words help organize the material that needs to be remembered, and act as reminders to recall that material.

There are different peg systems that one can use, all of which employ the use of a concrete object to represent each number. The systems include the rhyming method, the look-alike method, and the meaning method.

In order to use the rhyming-peg method, you must first memorize the words that rhyme with the corresponding numbers one through ten:
One-bun; two-shoe; three-tree; four-door; five-hive; six-sticks; seven-heaven; eight-gate; nine-vine; ten-hen

As you say each word, visualize the item clearly. Is the bun a hot dog or hamburger bun; does it have sesame seeds? Is the shoe blue or white? Laces or velcro? Is the tree an oak or birch?

Next, draw each item on a sheet of paper. Just the act of drawing will help you to remember the rhyme easier.

Once you have formed an association, or visualized a pictorial link between the numbers and the words that rhyme with them, you have constructed your pegs. Practice by saying each word aloud. Because the words rhyme with the numbers, you don’t have to say the numbers to remember the words.

Now, if you want to remember a list, all you have to do is link each item with a peg-the first with a bun, the second with a shoe, and so on.

Here is how you would remember the following grocery list:
Peas, pork chops, milk, bread, eggs, butter

Attach each item on the list to one of the rhyming words, making the association as vivid and ridiculous as possible. The sillier your image, the easier you will remember. Try imagining peas tap dancing on a bun; picture a pig with a shoe on its head; imagine a milk carton in an oak tree. And so on, until you have associated each item on your list.

Now when you think of a bun you see the peas. When you think of shoes, you will think of pork chops, etc.

This method can be used to help you remember lists, errands, daily activities, etc. Have fun with it!

The link method, also known as the chain system, is the most basic of mnemonic strategies used to boost your memory. It can be used for memorizing short list of items, such as shopping lists, in which each item is linked to the next. Here is how it works:

• Form a visual image for each item on the list
• Associate the image for the first item with the image for the second item
• Associate the image for the third item with the image for the second item, and so on.
• Begin with the first item and proceed in order as each item leads to the next one to recall the list.

Try not to associate every item with every other item; instead, you are just associating the items two at a time. Here is a sample grocery list that can be easily remembered using the link method:

Milk, eggs, pork chops, syrup, peas

First, form a visual association between milk and eggs. You might imagine an egg trying to cram itself into a glass milk bottle. Next, create a link between eggs and pork chops. Perhaps you could visualize a pig dancing with a giant egg. To associate pork chops with syrup, imagine a pig dipping its tail into a pool of maple syrup.

When you are creating your visual associations, make sure you see them clearly in your mind’s eye.

There are limitations with this method; each item is linked to the previous one, except for the first item. You will need to come up with a way to cue that first item on your list. If the list is a shopping list, try linking the first item with the entranceway of a grocery store.

If you can use the link method to successfully remember ten items, you can use it to remember twenty or thirty items as well. There is no limit to how many items you can remember.

Here is how you can practice using the link system. Have someone give you ten concrete words – not verbs or adjectives – and write them down as they are called out. Writing them down will enable the other person to check your responses, and it will give you a brief amount of time to think of links. Whatever the first word is, associate it with the person who is calling out the words. If the first word is elephant, imagine seeing an elephant sitting on that person’s head. Once you have mastered linking ten words, try for fifteen, then twenty, and so on.

Experts now know that while some specific parts of memory may decline with age, overall memory remains strong at least through the 70’s. Research has shown that the average 70-year-old performs as well on many memory tests as 30 percent of 20-year-olds. And many older folks in their 60s and 70s score significantly better in verbal intelligence than young people.

As a person ages, memory function begins to slow, affecting different types of memory in different ways. Many of the reasons for this age-related memory loss are reversible – depression, medications, poor diet, thyroid deficiency, or substance abuse.

Age can make a person’s memory less effective, but this is generally the result of disuse rather than disease. By running through some daily mental drills – sort of like practicing scales on a piano – a person can prevent intellectual breakdown. Physical exercise too, can help with improving and stimulating memory function.

Stimulating the brain can stop brain cells from shrinking with age; it can even lead to an increase in brain size, resulting in memory improvements. Some scientists now believe that it is possible to improve memory function by challenging themselves with active learning or by living in an enriched environment, alive with colors, sounds, sights and smells.

The first step in boosting your memory power is to improve the health of your brain cells by stimulating your surroundings. Try a bright new shade for your walls and add colorful curtains and pictures. A fish tank will provide a soothing noise and a relaxing area of interest. Put up a birdfeeder outside your window, and keep a bird handbook and a pair of binoculars on hand. You can even keep a ‘bird diary’ to note the different species of birds you encounter. Try doing challenging jigsaw and 3D puzzles.

Developing a positive attitude is instrumental in stimulating your memory. Work on maintaining a positive attitude and stay flexible. Explore new areas, get out and get involved with life.

Take a course to learn a new skill. It could be as simple as flower arranging, or as challenging as math. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku and other games will help keep your mind sharp.

If you have trouble remembering appointments or birthdays keep these dates in a calendar and record all pertinent information.

Be sure to relax. It is always harder to remember things when we are nervous or tense. Take a few deep breaths and consciously relax your muscles.