I’m wondering if someone that has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, say an 80 year old person can slowly not forget who they are and their close family members IF they were to constantly view and watch videos that they themselves filmed throughout their lives?
I don’t know the nature of these diseases but I’d imagine they may be able to recall old memories if they were to see videos that they filmed themselves from say their original 2007 iPhone or 2010 iPhone 4.
While we’re at it, what about certain scents such as a perfume or cologne from an old high school flame?
In: Biology
A few months before my grandpa died in 1971, my dad (his son-in-law) had a long conversation with him about a place they worked at together right after World War II. Grandpa remembered everyone, what work they did, and in some cases their wives’ names. But as soon as Dad left the room, Grandpa couldn’t remember Dad’s name.
It varies person to person.
This actually upsets my grandma more to do that. She is with it enough to know she has long term memory but not short and it makes her very upset and she cries. 🙁
Usually (but not always) with dementia it is short term memory that is affected first. As the brain degenerates further past memories are lost and people you know well are no longer recognised.
My point is, by the time it gets to the old memories usually the disease has progressed significantly. Showing them videos would probably give them a great deal of pleasure, but they may not remember you even showed them the video five minutes later, nor the memory it invoked, if that happened at all.
So, while that can help in the short term, it’s not a long term cure. The brain stops working correctly, and while you can use things with strong memory associations to try and help it remember, it’s sort of like trying to use a bucket to keep a sinking boat from going under. If there’s too much water going in, the bucket may slow down the sinking, but not stop it completely.
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