the times | Thursday November 11 2021 7
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KELVIN MURRAY/GETTY IMAGESHow can we tell whether that
loss of focus is ‘cognitive
decline’ rather than stress?
We know the brain forgets
information to avoid being overloaded,
and if it’s constantly ticking to try to
comprehend the risks around a
pandemic, there’s little space for
other information. That makes it
difficult to discern whether we’re
confused because of a temporary
blackout brought about by stress, or
something more significant.
Those who monitor memory loss
are keeping a watchful eye out on the
findings of this latest research. “While
these findings are intriguing,
depression and anxiety can often have
short-term effects on memory and
thinking skills that may not be an
indication of future dementia,” says
Dr Sara Imarisio, the head of research
at Alzheimer’s Research UK.And what about dementia?
It can be difficult to unpick the
difference between an
understandable sluggishness brought
on by a Covid-related decline in
cognition, or something more
worrying such as early-onset
dementia. “The only way of detecting
the difference is looking for
improvements in mental health status
and improvements of memory,” says
Professor Dame Til Wykes, the
vice-dean for mental health andpsychological sciences at King’s
College London’s Institute of
Psychiatry, Psychology and
Neuroscience who was not involved in
the Protect study. “As we are going
back to being a bit more normal — or
the new normal — we would expect
people’s anxiety and depression to
decrease. Then you’d expect problems
with memory to improve.”What can we do?
Happily, the increased pace of
memory decline, if brought about by
Covid, should be reversible. “The
impact normally is short-term, and we
normally do see that recovery as life
returns to normal and anxiety levels
reduce and depression decreases,” says
Brooker, who suggests some simple
tricks that could help with the toll the
pandemic has taken on our cognition.
“The most important thing is to
encourage people into physical
activity, social engagement and
utilising your brain, whether that is
through word puzzles or sudoku,” she
says. “Keeping yourself physically and
mentally active can help.”
Other research suggests that
exercise such as yoga or activities like
holidays stimulate the memory, and in
terms of dietary changes, eating nuts,
seeds and berries has been found to
slow the ageing process of the brain.
And if you still can’t remember
where you left your house keys, don’t
fret. As Ostby has said, we live in an
information-heavy age, so for the sake
of efficiency, when we’re engaged in
mundane activities, “our brain isn’t
paying attention to it at all”. But you
could start by checking the pockets of
the coat you were wearing yesterday.each participant every year, is running
for 25 years so will be able to track
whether the impact is reversible.Why is the change so marked
in the over-50s?
Until recently the Protect study,
which has signed up thousands of
people online, only tracked the
results of cognitive tests and levels
of activity and lifestyle of those
aged 50 and over. It recently
extended its parameters to
include those aged 40 and over.
So while the change is significant,
there is no way of knowing
whether the impacts, which appear
to be linked to a decline in mental
health brought about by isolation and
the stresses and strains of living in
pandemic Britain, are also present in
younger people.Does it matter if you have had
Covid or not?
“We’re working towards this in the
next few months as we ask more
questions about the participants’
Covid status,” Brooker says. In theory,
it could be the case that a positive
Covid diagnosis has a more significant
impact — in large part because
of the worry associated with
catching the illness and the need
to self-isolate.
Surveys of the population, carried
out by the Office for National
Statistics, find that those who are
following guidance to shield are less
satisfied with their lives than the rest
of the population, albeit only
marginally so. “I think the challenge is
also the isolation aspect that many
people felt,” she says. “Older people
who live alone may have lost people.
Grandchildren and children are living
further away. The isolation became
something more significant [during
the pandemic] and it does have an
effect on our overall mood.”
People’s routines — that weekly
shop or bus ride into town — were
also disrupted. “The effects of that
being taken away from them could be
profound,” Brooker says. Loneliness is
a risk to your health equivalent to
drinking a bottle of vodka or smoking
15 cigarettes every day, according to
Goodwin. One Harvard University
study, conducted in 1998, found that
people who declared themselves
persistently lonely saw their cognitive
function drop 20 per cent faster than
those who were not lonely.Does the likelihood of it
happening rise with age?
“We know older people can be very
active in their lives,” Brooker says. “It’s
more down to the way you live your
life, and the change that was felt.”
Social butterflies who thrive on
making physical connections and
contact with others may have felt
more keenly the change in their day-
to-day lives, for example.
Of course, it is well known that as
we age, we can seem more forgetful.
The Scandinavian neuropsychologist
Ylva Ostby is the author of Adventures
in Memory: The Science and Secrets of
Remembering and Forgetting. “Even
though age does affect memory, as
early as your thirties, it’s normal and
not that noticeable,” she has said.
“Everyday slips of memory become
more frequent as we grow older, due
to loss of neurons in the hippocampus,
but it’s not something to be alarmed
about. There’s a great variability, and
some people keep their memory
abilities intact their whole life.”that would damage the health of the
nation, it’s lockdown”.
Exercise is key not just to physical
health, but mental health, generating
new brain cells — and that was taken
away from many of us too. Likewise,
Goodwin says, the brain cells of those
who are socially isolated are smaller
than those who regularly meet people.
“Our lives were controlled in a way
it hasn’t been in our lifetimes before,”
Brooker says. “We would have
expected there to be an increase in
anxiety and depression as a result of
changes to people’s lives.”
Anxiety and vulnerability to
depression are conditions known to
negatively affect performance on
cognitive tests, such as those in which
you are asked to try to run through a
list of numbers in ascending order,
then in descending order. As a result,
it’s unsurprising that the uncertainty
around Covid would have had an
impact. “Your subjective wellbeing —
or your mental health — is also a
critical component to long-term brain
health,” Goodwin says. “Just as we
can’t do without food and water, we
can’t do without the interaction with
others. That social cognition is deeply
embedded in the brain. And when we
feel lonely, that’s a warning light
coming on, like hunger or thirst.”
“We know both have an impact on
our cognitive function — albeit often
these are short-term impacts,” Brooker
says. Her study, which requires just a
short amount of engagement from
Simple tests to
sharpen your memory
driving. A woman and a man
on the left of Preston Street —
that’s the east side — caught
sight of the car and the man
waved. The driver waved back.
At that moment, two dogs
came hurtling out of a
doorway on the right side of
Preston Street — the
newsagents, I think it was.
One was brown, the other was
small and black. They both
darted into the road in front of
the car. The black dog got
across the road safely. The car
driver only just saw the brown
one in time. As he swerved to
avoid it, his car mounted the
pavement on the left of
Preston Street and smashed
into a wall.
Cover the passage. Now
answer these questions put
to you by the counsel for
the defence. Answer each
question fully before moving
on to the next.6 What colour was the car?6 Which way was it travelling
along Preston Street?6 Who waved first?6 Which side of the street
were the couple standing on?6 Which dog got across
safely?
6 Which side of the road did
the car hit?6 Was the driver of the car a
man or a woman?
6 Where did the dogs come
from?Extracted from Age-Proof
Your Brain by Tony Buzan
(Harper Thorsons, £13)Fact bank
Time: 120 seconds
Focus: Long-term memoryTake 60 seconds to learn
all the presidents of the US
from the Second World
War until 2009, in order.
Cover up the page. Write
down the names.
1945-53 Harry S Truman
1953-61 Dwight D
Eisenhower
1961-63 John F Kennedy
1963-69 Lyndon
Johnson
1969-74 Richard Nixon
1974-77 Gerald Ford
1977-81 Jimmy Carter
1981-89 Ronald Reagan
1989-93 George Bush
1993-2001 Bill Clinton
2001-09 George W BushCheck your answers. Take
60 seconds to learn the dates
for each. Cover the page.
Write down the full list of
presidents with dates. Check
your answers.Number punching
Time: 120 seconds
Focus: Short-term memoryGive yourself 60 seconds to
remember as many numbers
as possible from the list below.
Cover up the page and write
down your answers.
4567
3756
23564
58347
365764
253498
3782745
4625928
29478456
36378492
373839309
767483827
3756392011
1293980930
45363448411
28394836329
027236817281
126351546298Memory toner
Take no more than 20 seconds
to read the passage.A blue BMW was coming up
Preston Street from north to
south. There was a manp o d c b s afi
t
d
s
th
in
D a A I d u od an cIt seems that worry is one of
the enemies of memory, though,
according to Ostby. “We fill up our
working memory with stressful
thoughts. A lot of memory
consolidation goes on while we
sleep. Memories are being laid down,
rearranged and put into the right
place. Lack of sleep can cause
memory problems; you might
remember events from the day,
but the memories are not
properly consolidated.”Your subjective
wellbeing
is critical to
brain health
As we go back to
normal life, you’d
expect memory
to improve
20%
For those who declare
themselves persistently
lonely, the speed of
decline in cognitive
function increases byNancy and Ronald Reagan