I have to admit there are days when I wonder why continue to write six blog entries a week. There have been days when I’ve thought if not for the regular attendance of a troupe of dedicated Baboons, there would be little reason to keep the thread going.
Until now, that is.
A new neurological study indicates that keeping a brain active is one way to significantly impede the progress of dementia. Published in the scientific journal Neurology, this investigation found that a group of people who read regularly and were in the habit of writing letters had fewer of the physical changes (lesions, brain plaques, tangles) that go along with dementia.
And yes, they had to wait until the people the were studying had died. Then they took out their brains and examined them. Ugh. I wonder how it effects longevity to know that when you die they’re going to cut open your skull and put your brain in a jar? For me, that would be a huge incentive to stay alive.
Maybe I could get funding to study that.
Anyway, in the articles I saw on this topic, reading and writing were the only specific brain activities mentioned that could slow the advance of dementia, although the brain is such a multi-purpose instrument I’m sure there must be other ways to keep it “active”. Doing long division, for example. Or playing the piano or learning another language. How about rebuilding carburetors or memorizing state capitals? Suppose all you do is watch TV. Even trying to understand the activities of the Kardashians has to demand some neurological wattage. I would think knowing the names of all the current reality-TV stars is a remarkable achievement in the field of memory. At least I know it’s a mental workout I wouldn’t be able to do.
I’d be OK if reading and writing were the only sure things, brain-freshening-wise. I’m fortunate that I happen to like doing both, and blogging six days a week gives me a well regulated daily dose of each of these medicinal activities. Perhaps I should claim blogging-related expenses as physical therapy to prevent the build up of various bits of clutter and debris that can disable brains.
And maybe I should charge guest bloggers a surprisingly hefty fee for partaking of this brain therapy along with me, just like a clinic or a hospital would. But I can’t – I’m too kind-hearted.
Plus, I’m planning to take a couple of weeks off and I need the help.
So if you have an idea for a guest post, please send me a note and let me know what you want to write. I’ll write back to confirm the assignment, and you’ll feel better instantly. The deadline for finished pieces is July 15th – one week from today.
Write to me at connelly.dale@gmail.com, and give your melon the workout it deserves. A post a day keeps dementia at bay!
Would you donate your dead body to science? Why or why not?
Trail Baboon 
two weeks off? what the heck!!! the world is coming to an end. will we finally get to read a renee guest blog? an edith guest blog? how about a ben? linda… cmon now… bir, steve, jim and i should be able to kick in.. maybe,sherilee , jacque anna lisa chitrader joanne , i bet bill has one in him. cmon gang, give lets put on a show for a couple of weeks.
i started doing luminosity to keep my brain tuned up. its free on a smart phone / computer unless you need the deluxre edition but it is fun and helpful and points out what you already knew about yourself but were trying to avoid remembering. i recommend it. as for leaving my body to science. sure they can have whatever they want. i am a donor on my dl and have had peoplle at the dmv give me a wierd look because being a donor with a live will makes you a candadate for body part retrieval but i think thats what its about. if im to that point let em have it… i think my lungs would be interesting i started smoking when i was 12 or 13 and while it took me a couple of years to get up to 3 packs of marlboros a day i hung in there for years and years 30 ish. i got off those devil sticks about 10 years back but ill bet the pictures of damaged lungs making a comeback would be of interest. taking my brain after im dead? better than before i guess but im not sure it would show anything very dramatic. eyes ears lungs liver kidney. when you hear about all the people waiting for parts its really remarkable that the solution is not worked on. make it a tax deductable contribution while you are alive. create a reality show and feature the recipiants of the body parts while doing a quick eulogy for the dead guys on prime time.
or the donor is right cmon down folks and bob barker will give away your kidney if you guess right on the game of cash and prizes. did you see the hunger games?
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tim, you were born to be a cheerleader/marketer! You make writing a blog feel like an act of Baboon Patriotism.
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Tim, I have sent Dale one or maybe two guest blogs, and he hasn’t used them yet, so you can’t say I haven’t tried.
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Write a good one
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Do one on soup spoons
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Good morning. Sure, if any scientist wants my dead body they can have it. I hope that it will not be available for a while because I want to use it for at least a few more years. Also, I am willing to donate whatever I can write for a guess blog. Doing that writing might delay the time when I am done with my body by a little bit if that research that Dale mentioned is correct. The scientist who wants my body, if there is one, will have to be willing to wait. At least that is my wish.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Dale is ever so correct about “use it or lost it.” My Dear Uncle Jim, now age 81, is reading and writing letters by snail mail daily. I just wrote him a letter yesterday and sent it off. He cannot believe that he has lived this long–his parents died at age 65 and 72. He believes his letters and reading are part of the reason why. I saw him and Aunt Donna 3 weeks ago and they seem pretty perky. However, most of what he reads is right wing conspiracy theory-ish stuff which I cannot warm to. He is a retired teacher, now without a student body to talk to, so reading and letters do it for him. He has a file cabinet in the basement–his historical archives–in which he archives the letters he receives from all of us. Really! And his handwriting is Palmer Pensmanship Perfect. It is just his political beliefs that miss the mark.
Oh Well.
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I totally understand Dale’s message today, both the difficulty of writing something intelligent every day and the value of trying to do it. As you all know, I write a letter each morning to a 90-year-old friend and have done so for 14 years. The letters are about 1200 words long. To my sense of things, writing an interesting letter is more difficult each day because I have used up my store of good stories and–even more–because my friend is shutting down, becoming less interested in the world as she mentally prepares for the next step in her life. She never wanted to live this long. Now she is losing her ability to take an interest in things that once amused her. She is slipping into an old person’s instinctive dislike of new things.
For me, this means I try each morning to find new ways of saying something interesting to someone who is harder each day to reach. I don’t mean to sound as if this is a bad thing. It is just a challenge, and challenges are good (as long as we are able to meet them). I don’t claim my brain is benefiting from these challenges in ways scientists would find remarkable. No, it is more that the discipline of trying to amuse an old friend who is dying is good for me. From a purely selfish point of view, it is good to force myself to reflect on my life–limited as it is these days–and to find something of value in an existence that is mostly boring, or could be if I let it be. I usually begin each letter in an atmosphere of despair, thinking that today will finally be the day when I say, “I don’t have a damn thing to say today.” Instead, I dive in and try to find things to discuss that will be worth my friend taking the time to read them.
Of course, I’ll try to come up with acceptable guest blog topics. I have one written in my mind that might work. Maybe I can find a second one.
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if waiting until we had something to say was the criteria on planet earth only rush limbaugh would be heard. how dreadful. blather on. looking forwad to a blog or two from you, i like dales tactic … to come up with the topic then write it, in line with my backwards approach to life.
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My fondest wish is that Rush Limbaugh would wait to speak until he had something worthwhile to say.
(if this double-posts, don’t blame me, it was the kitten)
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Humming is not possible any more w WordPress technology
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I didn’t say something worthwhile …. I said something to say
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I have had some guest blogs that were written in my mind. They are so witty, so brilliant…my problem is trying to retrieve them from my mind and get them on a document.
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Steve, I can’t think of anything tougher than trying to write something interesting for someone who has lost all interest in just about everything. I remember trying to make conversation with Auntie Chris on the long car-ride to Iowa for the last time about a year ago. She was done with the past, had no stake in the future, and was just marking time in the present. Bless you for continuing to try. I suspect your friend knows your efforts are motivated by love.
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She’s not as far gone as that, but her interests dwindle almost day by day.
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Glad to hear that. Still, has to be tough to watch the dwindling interest of what I understand has been a very engaged mind.
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Exactly, mig. She and I have long known that one of the values of this process we are engaged in is to let her model the aging and dying process for me. I am frankly disheartened by what I see of the shutting down of a formerly vibrant personality, but that is something I cannot avert my eyes from. If there is something to be gained here, it requires that I (at least) need to be totally honest about what happens to a person as they make an exit. I have seen many danger signs that now are reminders to me of all the ways we can change as we reach the final laps. Every day I fight little battles against what I think of as the process of “old fartism.”
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I assume that you “write” by way of email (my hands would curl up and die if I had to write 1200 words manually and I don’t even have arthritis).
A benefit for the person writing the 1200 words daily could be that all the zillions of things forgotten, major or minor, would be retrievable in a journal such as yours (I’m projecting my failing memory, not impugning your fine one). Today, a friend told me that I helped her buy a car (joining her for test drive and wrangling a salesperson) and I have only the slightest whisper of a memory. Not important but it would be nice to be able to go back to xx/xx/xx journal day to review.
And, it’s possible that editing one of those 1200 word days could produce in interesting blog post.
I could be inspired by the idea but we’ll see.
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You remind me, Lisa, of the raw terror I feel when I run into someone who remembers me from earlier times. I met up with a woman a few years ago who recognized me and said that I had given her advice on some point that was concerning her. “Oh, God, NO!” I cried. “I sure hope it was okay advice and not something stupid!” Whether she spoke from charity or the truth, she assured me I had been kind and thoughtful. I walked away with terrific relief. “Ha! I fooled another one!”
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Morning all. Well, I’d read someplace that crossword puzzles and the like are good for your brain. But I’m exceedingly cheered to hear that reading can help stave off dementia as I don’t know anyone who reads more than I do (except maybe Bill and/or Robin). Finished book #75 for the year over the weekend.
I have the body part donor checkmark on my license. No offense to folks on waiting lists, but I hope that I live long enough that all my parts will be used up/wore out.
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im feeling like some of mine already are
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Certainly not your brain!!!
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the old gray matter just ain’t what she used to be
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In terms of sheer quantity of books, you and Robin have me beat by a wide margin. The books I read these days tend to be denser and slower going. I do have a pretty good memory for book titles and authors, even those I haven’t read (yet) and a good general awareness of books on a variety of topics.
On the subject of my post-mortem utility, I’d be happy to donate any parts that are worth harvesting. After reading Mary Roach’s “Stiff”, I’ve given some thought to also donating my cadaver for medical students to practice on. I’d like to amuse them somehow; If you were going to have something tattooed on your soon-to-be-disected form, with medical students in mind, what would it be? I’m kind of thinking it would be fun to recreate the graphics from the old “Operation” game.
Incidentally, I know I’m not handling the presentation of book titles correctly, but on an iPad, I don’t know how to achieve underlined text or even italics. Anyone have any tips?
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I can’t even manage to do italics on this blog from my laptop. Every time I’ve tried, I end up italicizing not only what I was trying to italicize, but the rest of my reply, too. And I have no idea how to do anything on an iPad, not even turn it on, but I’m sure someone else can help you.
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I’ve given up trying to mess with the html codes to make bold and italics. Like Edith, I’ve often ended up italicizing everything that comes after. So I just put quotes around book titles these days…
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Loved Stiff – it felt inappropriate to laugh at some of the things that made me laugh in it and I think that made them funnier. Who knew a book about dead bodies could be funny?
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Okay – now I’ve tested my knowledge again. To get italics: use the sideways open carat “” followed by your title or word, then close the italics out with open carat . I’d try to show an example, but WordPress may just treat it as html and strip it out – let’s see… ““
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Yep, stripped it out. Boo.
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I know how to italicize. You type (without the spaces) and then the phrase you want to italicize and then you turn it off by typing (without the spaces), If you fail to put in that final thingie, the italics run riot.
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Shoot! I thought I’d outwitted the thing, but no. You type a carot (). That turns it on. To turn it off, do the same but put a backslash (/) in before the “i”.
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Hmmmm. I’m going to give it a shot, although, Steve, your backslash looks like a forward slash to me (I do need to go in soon for my eye checkup, so maybe it’s just me). Don’t laugh too hard when I get it wrong.
Italics are fun!
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Okay, that was dumb. I don’t know if I turned off the italics because I didn’t type anything after what I wanted italicized. One more try!
Italics are fun! I am dumb when it comes to technology
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Shoot. That didn’t work. I’ll try a forward slash.
Italics are fun except when I can’t turn them off.
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Got it! Thanks, Steve. Now tell me how to remember this trick.
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()Like this(/)?
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() Obviously not (\)
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VS, i emailed you instructions. no teacher like someone who just learned something. (besides i figured it was a good way to reinforce it so i can remember how to do it.)
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So, I asked the original question and I still am not sure how to code the text. () Is this it?(/)
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()this?(/)
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()this?()
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I give up
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my instructions:
first type:
then type what you want to italicize (no space after the bracket thing)
to turn off the italics, type:
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Okay, that was dumb. It doesn’t show up very well in word press. Bill, I emailed Robin with instructions because I don’t know your email address.
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This is hilarious!
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I’ll be happy to donate my body to science, if science will take it. Of course, I plan to live well past 100 years, so there might not be much left worth studying, except maybe to figure out how I beat the life-expectancy odds.
Chris in Owatonna
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Like Sherillee, I’ve got the box checked on my license. The ultimate plan is to give the whole carcass to the U or whoever else might want it. I’ve been on the other side of the scalpel, so I have no worries about the antics of irreverent medical students. Now I just need to get it all in writing, right down to the music and what we’re having for lunch (fear not, it won’t be me).
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Donating my body, no problem. Writing a blog or, heaven forbid, 1200 words a day, torture.
Besides having checked the Donor checkbox on my license, I have a card in my wallet that will direct my brain-harvest to an organization studying autism. Son#2 is on the spectrum (his diagnoses have included high functioning autism, Aspergers, PDDNOS). The Autism Tissue Program seeks brains both from those on the spectrum as well as from family members and unrelated people. From the website: “While in some states and countries, registration for organ donation makes the process automatic at the time of death (as on your driver’s license), this is not the case for brain tissue donation. Because brain tissue is used for research and not transplantation, it is not included on most organ donation registries.”
I’m glad this has come up as a topic because I have been reminded that this will not be automatic; I need to include language in my Health Care directive and make my family aware of this request. Son#2 and I have talked about getting him registered, too.
Steve mentions often struggling to come up with topics of interest to his friend on a daily basis. I can’t imagine coming up with ONE, much less for 14 years. Apparently it would be “good for me” to try this. I’m very fussy about trying not to share what other people would find boring so mining for topics comes up with nothing.
I will look forward to reading other baboons’ contributions though. A bit of a brain workout there.
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I think you might be too hard on yourself, Lisa. You can take even a small thing that you found interesting, difficult, or funny and we would also find something of interest in it. The things I’ve written about haven’t been that amazing, yet they have always been well received. (One of them even developed into a long-standing inside joke, although some people claim it’s not really a joke.) You can trust Dale to tell you if it’s so bad he doesn’t want to post it.
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Sure, next thing we know, you’re going to try and convince us that Carlos is just a figment of Donna’s imagination…..
and yes, Dale is really good at making someone else’s writing look pretty good-kind of like having your head shot retouched by a master. Take your own good advice, Edith, and put something out there. Me, I’ve got nothing between now and the 15th, just keeping the head above water (so as not to make an early deposit to the U’s body bank).
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Recently I wrote down 4 topics that I could use for a guest blog post. Now I’m not sure where I put that piece of paper…if I can find that paper, I will try to get at least one written before Dale’s vacation; otherwise I guess I’ll have to write something about losing important pieces of paper.
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I think you may be on to something there Edith!
All my blog ideas are in a folder on the desktop of my laptop, labelled (i)Baboons(i/)
I have a feeling that is not what Steve meant, only one way to find out.
Does anyone else have a smouldering resentment at WordPress for not letting us go back and edit our posts? I really wish there was more grace involved.
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Lisa… don’t think of it as 1200 words. Think of it as 3 paragraphs. You just did that above! The first one is always the hardest.
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Also, you will not need 1200 words. Dale usually wants only about 600 words, or even less.
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People who swim every day think other people should do that. People who meditate every day think others should do that. I write every day, forcing myself to contemplate the previous day and trying to find something of interest in that. It helps me, but I won’t make the assumption it would help everyone. And in the end, it is good for my pride to be able to harvest something of interest from a life so undeniably uneventful. That leads me to think that engaging in almost any sort of mental or physical discipline on a daily basis is good for almost anyone. I join other baboons, Lisa, in expressing confidence that you have as much to say as anyone. You just need a way to find it.
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This blog is particularly relevant for me today as I’m soon leaving to get yet another 24-EEG hooked up to my brain! Having thus far stumped not one but two neurologists with my dancing brain wave irregularities after four other EEGs, they’re hoping that this one will be calmer. Today marks the completion of my 3-month house arrest (driving ban not obeyed). I returned to my initial neuro doc last week to argue my case and was armed with tons of research PLUS the second opinion. I succeeded in backing her off her initial (and in my opinion premature) diagnosis of epileptic seizure disorder, but came away with a new medical term: subclinical. She explained that this means I have alarming epileptic-looking brain wave activity but with no symptoms at all. In other words, I’m entirely asymptomatic.
She also said that I might’ve been better off never knowing about my crazy brain, but that the one convulsive event which resulted in the bizarre initial EEG showing 30-40 seizures means that THEY now know and that THEY are very concerned. She’s inferring here that I could’ve lived happily the rest of my life without this being “caught”! I’m temporarily complying with anti-seizure meds to see if they alter today’s EEG. If they don’t, both docs agree that only Mayo will be able to solve the mystery. I’m playing both Dr. House and his patient in the meantime. Forensics always did fascinate me.
And so, I’m just waiting for symptoms to show up but thus far, the only symptoms I’ve had are in a few dreams of having symptoms. I had one last night in which I’d clearly “lost time” and memory. In this dream, I debated with myself about whether or not I was going to mention this to my neurologist.
The saving grace for me with all my medical problems the last three years is that I’m so curious about them and so hell-bent to investigate every aspect that I remain quite detached from anxiety or emotions about what’s happening to my physical self. This, in turn, just turns all of it into an adventure – a real life detective novel!
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I was wondering about you CB; wondered if you had been down to Mayo Rochester yet. Good luck with your very own Forensics!
Please shoot me an email if you do get here; bkhain at aol.
And that goes for anyone else coming through town. If you can find your way out of the subway maze I’ll buy coffee or drinks. 🙂
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I take it that you live in Rochester? If this final bunch of tests doesn’t produce a definitive result, I’ll have no choice but to do the 2-3 day Mayo thing. Might you have a bed I could sleep in 1 or 2 nights, Ben??
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If you give me a few days warning so I can get the junk off the guest bed, then, Yes.
The guestroom comes with a private bath stuck in 1968 pink decor.
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Can science have my body? Over my dead body! (feeble attempt at a joke)
Yes, I would be glad to donate my body to science. I knew someone who had arranged to donate his body to science after cancer had finished it off and there was no funeral expenses because the body was gone. Being a cheapskate at heart, that appeals to me.
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Edith, my favorite TV series is “Mad Men.” (I discovered the series with the help of Jacque.) One of the main characters dies of cancer. When the protagonist of the series wants to handle the funeral costs, the dead woman’s niece assures him that Anna doesn’t need that. “Anna left her body for science. She always wanted to go to UCLA without paying tuition!”
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Pretty funny!
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Morning–
Daughter started summer school today. So we’re all adjusting our schedules. And bummer that her main teacher decided not to return next year. Darn it! She was good, too. I hate change.
I’ve checked the donor box too. Have at it.
Do you suppose it makes a difference of reading in electronic form over reading printed material? Will the EMF coming off the computer or handheld device shorten your life to the point it overrides the gains of the reading?
I email with a friend every morning. Haven’t counted the words; some days are more interesting than others. And by George, hardly a haircut, meal or other minor daily event goes un-mentioned. Whether we have anything to say or not isn’t the point…
We could challange Dale; let’s see how dull a story we could write and if he could still jazz it up?? 🙂
(I’m thinking a page from the dictionary.)
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You know you are desperate for material, Ben, when you want to write about your BMs. Of course, they can be large events in the lives of an older person and very well might be the highlight of a day. But one tries to maintain standards!
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I believe this is also a lively topic of conversation amongst the parents of toddlers.
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Right! One of the most terrifying discoveries you make is that we all begin life incontinent and in diapers, and that is how many of us end.
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Yep – as Ben said, have at it. Currently have the box checked on DL, but I would just as soon let the med students have it. I wonder who to contact about that – anybody know?
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Try this: http://www.med.umn.edu/bequest/
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Here might be a good place to start:
http://www.bequest.umn.edu/forms/
The Anatomy Bequest Program at the U of M. If it is anything like the program at the University of Iowa was, there is usually a lovely ceremony of thanks and remembrance at the end of the school year to which family members and students are invited.
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Thanks, Anna and mig! A wealth of information…
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I’m a donor. And keep meaning to do something about leaving my body for the fine med students at the U of MN to play with when I’m done with it. As I have said about where to put me when I’m dead: I won’t really care, I’ll be dead. If I can help teach about disease, aging joints, the effects of high-dairy intake on brain chemistry, then by all means, cut me up, dissect and fillet my body. I come from a long line of pragmatic, practical people – we believe in using things as many ways as possible before they are deemed “no longer useful,” so why not treat my physical form the same way?…
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Pragmatic and practical, that about sums it up for me too. Having been part of planning my aunt’s conventional funeral kind of reminded me of my feelings about big expensive weddings that cost what amounts to what could be downpayment on a house.
For Pete’s sake, be practical and use the money to find a cure or launch a young life, don’t spend it on a pretty box you are going to take up valuable real estate to bury it in.
That said, I love going to the family cemetaries. I don’t have to make sense, do I?
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All of this talk about donating organs has me wanting to make specific arrangements for my brain to receive special attention when I die. My dancing electrical discharges might make for an interesting or instructive postmortem discovery?
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Um, once you have passed, there will be no more electrical discharges. If there are, now THAT would be a scientific first.
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Heck no, you’re in blogville.
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If we all were perfectly sensible and rational all the time, MIG, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be very fun. A little inconsistency is the spice of life. At least that’s what I told myself every time I read that one of the most important things I could do as a parent was be consistent.
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Goat interruption. Can’t help myself….
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Was just about to post that one. So cute.
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Man, I miss BiB.
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What a tragic fate. Smothered by baby goats! That poor woman.
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I finally checkmarked that box when I last got my driver’s license. May as well … then cremate the rest. I shall try to come up with a good blog topic to help out Dale.
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Well as Mick Jagger said when reading the top ten on Letterman…….
You start out playing rock ‘n’ roll so you can have sex and do drugs, but you end up doing drugs so you can still play rock ‘n’ roll and have sex”
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snort.
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I’d leave my body to science, but I think I’d have a problem giving up control. What if there’s an afterlife? What if I can see what I’m being used for and I don’t like it? I’d probably want to set some parameters before I sign anything. Is that so wrong?
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