Dear LPG,

I am very lucky because even though I gave up being married a long time ago, I have not been locked down alone.  My mother has been with me every step of the way, but no matter who you were locked down with it has been hard and I am so relieved that the blur that is the end of all this seems to be finally coming into focus.

There have been lots of aspects of the whole thing that I know I will not miss when it is finally all over, but the one thing that has affected me most of all was the constant reminders that my mother offers about the fact that lockdown has made her forgetful.

Increasingly over the past year, whenever I ask her a question that she does not know the answer to, she will remind me that her memory is getting really bad rather than just telling me that she does not know the answer, and that is the thing that, after a year of hearing it, I have to say really gets to me most of all.

I have always thought that if there is a problem, dwelling on it will only make it worse and a better use of the brain power that’s left, no matter how much of it you think you have lost, is to work out just how bad it is by seeing your doctor.

While we still find ourselves in a pandemic when most doctors are otherwise engaged, I thought bothering one of those would not be the best initial idea, but the internet always serves as a bit of an authority on most subjects so I found a few challenges that might make anyone who feels like my mum a bit better about how bad things really are. 

These tests were so entertaining that the point of doing them got quite lost until the end, (you could say we forgot what we were doing them for, for a while).   I have to say that her memory is as good as it ever was, or at least better than mine if the results are anything to go by.  They put her mind at rest a little (although I think she only ever used her pre-test conclusions as a convenient excuse sometimes; for her as well as me), and every time she uses the excuse now I can remind her about her test results.  So if there are any readers out there with the same anxiety, I suggest having a go at some of these tests.   If nothing else, they helped us pass an entertaining  hour or two and gave us something new to talk about.

JW, Charlton

JW offers a little information on the subject…

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…and a few of the many little tests that will provide a really rough memory  measurement…

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