Anne’s Story
Memory protection in 6 months
Anxiety, Life Long Learning, Mindset
Anne loved to be alone. After retiring from her career as a paralegal, she spent most of her days going for long nature walks with her husband, Felix, or quietly reading in her studio.
Yet, she sometimes felt a pit in her stomach - like she should be out, doing more, living her life to the fullest. Her world had become a lot smaller since she had retired.
Some days she felt like her brain was getting “mushy”, and she worried about developing dementia. She tried to stay healthy by:
Going for long walks every day
Eating a healthy diet, with very little alcohol
Getting 7 hours of sleep a night
Staying at a healthy weight, which helped her avoid high blood pressure and diabetes.
She asked to see a dementia expert with the hope of finding out if there was anything else that she could do to protect her mind.
What Did We Do?
We did a comprehensive assessment going over all of Anne’s medical history, cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms, her daily routines, a detailed physical exam, and a cognitive test.
She scored 29/30 on the MoCA (normal).
I also got to know more about her life story, and what mattered most to her.
What Did We Find?
Anne was doing a great job of protecting her mind already, but there were still a few things that we could do to reduce her risk of dementia even further.
We came up with a plan for each of the following:
1) Social Anxiety
Anne had undiagnosed social anxiety. It was mild, but it kept her from participating in things she would otherwise enjoy.
She got nervous when she was around large groups of people, and felt like everyone was looking at her, or judging her, if she had to be in a new group of unfamiliar people.
I explained that it was never to late to learn new coping skills, and Anne agreed to:
Start one-on-one therapy for 12 weeks with someone trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for social anxiety.
2) Life-Long Learning
Anne herself had felt like her brain was getting “mushy”. While this isn’t a medical condition, it does reflect the age old wisdom - use it or lose it.
While her social anxiety kept her from doing many group activities, there was still a lot she could do to pursue life-long learning on he own or with Felix, including:
Audit a university course in Art History, for free.
Take up bird watching with Felix on their daily nature walks, which would require her to learn and memorize the colours, habits, and sounds of local birds
3) Mindset & Anti-Ageism
Anne felt she had lived a good long life at 81 years of age. She believed that her time would be up soon, and that there was no point in trying to “do anything else” with her life. She admitted that she felt a bit “useless”, and the world’s focus on the young and beautiful didn’t help with her self-image.
I explained to Anne that her negative beliefs about what was possible at her age were actually a result of ageism in our society - and that just like other “-isms”, these beliefs were not actually true.
Given how healthy she was, and our medical advances, she had a good chance of living into her late 90’s or even 100’s with a good quality of life.
With that much time left - what did she want to do? What mattered most to her, and what did her heart feel pulled towards? We all have a tiny voice inside guiding us, if we listen close enough. I set her the task of:
Making a list of what she loved, what she was good at, and what she thought the world needed to see if there was an activity or project that overlapped between them all (something the Japanese call your “Ikigai”).
How is Anne Now?
It’s only been 6 months since I first met Anne, but she is doing phenomenally well.
She completed the 12 weeks of CBT and found it helpful. She still gets worried about social situations, but her anxiety is significantly less, and she no longer stresses for weeks leading up to an event.
She and Felix became avid bird watchers, and are in fact going on a group trip to Doñana National Park in Spain to see flamingos.
Without her CBT skills, Anne doubts she would have ever agreed to such a trip before, but now she can’t wait to test out her bird watching skills with people of similar interests.
She’s still searching for her passion, but she feels like she’s getting closer to it every day. Making a list of what she loves and what she is good at gave her a lot of insight and boosted her confidence in all that she has already accomplished in her life, fighting the stigma of ageism that had crept into her self-image.
…and she no longer feels her mind is “mushy”.
Congrats to Anne and good luck in your journey to building a strong mind, body, and spirit!
Disclaimer: The stories shared on this website are composites of several clinical cases, designed to protect individuals' privacy. They are intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or a reflection of any specific person. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.