Dr. Gregory Mistal (Aud) and Resident
Poor memory, forgetful memory, and other memory declines have been shown to be related to cognitive decline and incidental dementia. This decline can impact your memory and possibly impact your day to day activities. For example, “Do you know where I left my phone?” “What was I supposed to pick up at the grocery store?” “Do you remember Tony’s last name?”
Weakened memory skills can reduce cognitive resources available for goal-setting, attention, reasoning, problem solving, ability to process and interpret visual information, and the ability to have information understood, stored, and retrieved correctly.
Memory games and activities are useful to help with improving an individual’s memory. But how do you know if you do not obtain a baseline? Getting a basic score of your memory can show how, over time, memory and cognitive skills are improving. Using the SMARTfit system, which is available in the Sports Club, will allow you to see your progress and encourage you to keep moving forward.
Improved memory can help with improving conversations in noise, ignoring irrelevant distractions, or the ability to remember speech in background noise.
When memory is strengthened, listening effort, attention, and sensory integration all play a role in coding speech and visual cues that can be misheard or visual information not interpreted accurately. When there is a degree of memory slowly declining we need to develop strategies and skills to demonstrate forward progress.
I offer the Cognitive Thrive device. It is a computerized memory device based on FDA–cleared technology for memory/cognitive evaluation. The device uses psychophysics to eliminate bias and adapts to the individual’s motor and visual acuity. When completed, the Cognivue Thrive provides a report which can be used to see where you are at right now and those areas that can be worked on and improved. It’s like finding out your lab results and what needs attending, changing, or you may be surprised that some areas are better than expected.
This is not an IQ test. It will give you peace of mind. The results from the testing will give you the information you require to improve on the areas you need improved. Skills and techniques will be provided to assist you in those areas.
If you have questions or would like to schedule an appointment with Dr. Mistal, call 520-759-0007.