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Article: Memory
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Aging
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MEMORY
Most people recognize that their memories are changing as they grow older. They have a harder time coming up with names; they have a harder time finding things they need; they have to rely more on external memory cues such as notes or calendars. In fact, research results support these perceptions. The bad news from this research is that memory declines are experienced throughout the adult life span and not just in the older ages. Forty-year-olds as a group are worse than twenty-year-olds, and fifty-year-olds are worse than thirty-year-olds. The good news is that research shows that, unlike the serious and ubiquitous memory declines associated with Alzheimer's disease and other ...