That's the question many family members of dementia patients wonder when it's time to visit their loved ones who've lost their short-term memory.
Why visit when the patient's memory of the visit will fade almost immediately?
There's a one-word answer to that question: emotion.
Memories and emotions are deeply tied. So it's not surprising that the area of the brain that controls emotion (the limbic system) contains the hippocampus where information is converted into memory.
Also not surprising: the hippocampus is usually damaged in patients with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
This produces a disturbing effect. Long-term memories are accessible, but new memories can't be processed. So a patient with a damaged hippocampus can remember an old friend, but can't remember that the friend paid a visit just an hour ago.
Even so, the visit still leaves an imprint on the limbic system.
University of Iowa researchers explored this phenomenon with a two-part experiment.
In part one, a group of patients (all with hippocampus damage) were shown sad film clips, such as the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest is alone and crying at his wife's grave. These clips produced strong reactions, bringing some of the patients to tears.
Within 30 minutes of the last clip, all the patients had forgotten they'd watched the clips. But their sadness still lingered.
In the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, the authors of the study write, "The patients continued to experience elevated levels of sadness well beyond the point in time at which they had lost factual memory for the film clips."
Part two of the study followed the same design, but this time the film clips were funny or inspiring. And the basic result was the same. Within minutes, the film clips were forgotten, but good feelings remained long after.
In an NPR report about the study, Justin Feinstein, leader of the UI team, offered this advice for caretakers: "Telling them a simple joke, calling them up on the phone, giving them a visit, could actually have these enormous positive benefits."
20 years ago, long before I knew anything about Alzheimer's Disease, my aunt was in a dementia facility. My uncle, her brother, came up to RI from Florida to visit her. After the visit, he told me not to go. He said she wouldn't know me, and there was no reason for me to see her like that. I didn't go. I always felt badly about it.
At the end of February of this year, I wrote a blog about visiting my stepmother in RI, who had a massive stroke. She did not recognize me at first, but after I hugged and kissed her, and told her I loved her, she started to cry, and knew who I was. If I never see her alive again, I will always be glad I saw her and made her happy for a couple of days. It was then that I realized I should have visited my aunt all those years ago.
Emotions count. I would encourage visits to those with AD.
This is so true about emotions finding a place and lasting longer. My DH retains bad situations and anger emotions way longer than anything happy. I wish that I could find a way to change this. If I try to change the mood to something happy or talk about a happy memory, he will immediately change back to something that caused him a problem.
Lori-thanks so much for the great post. This is something I always believed but could never validate. My DH may forget I was there before I get to the door but the staff tells me he has a smile on his face for hours after I leave. cs
This is the beginning of my July column called 'Lingering Emotions.' It talks about the U of Iowa research & other things mentioned here. I wish I'd known then what I know now, I didn't give it enough attention then.
"There is a gentle story that routinely makes the Alzheimer’s rounds. How true it is, I have no idea, but it always bears telling again. It is early morning; an elderly gentleman is at the doctor’s office having a nurse remove stitches from his hand. He keeps looking at his watch, obviously anxious to leave. Idly, the nurse inquires why he’s in such a hurry and he tells her that he has a 9:00 appointment to eat breakfast with his wife every day at her nursing home. The nurse wants to know if his wife will be upset if he’s a few minutes late. He explains that she has Alzheimer’s and hasn’t known him for some time. Surprised, she says you go every morning to see her and she doesn’t even know who you are. He smiles, “She doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.”