As I have grown a little older, I have often found myself stalling as I try to think of someone’s name, embarrassingly this might be someone familiar to me. Sometimes it is a word that I try to remember that is illusive. As my frustration rises at the inefficiency of my mind, I wonder what might be causing this seeming change. Recently I was fortunate enough to hear a presentation on some research out of the University of Western Ontario that shed some light on this type of frustrating inefficiency.
MCI, minimal cognitive impairment, is a reality that many face as they grow older where our brains do not want to work as efficiently as we would like. Yes, they do have a name for what we intuitively know happens over time. The point of the study was that MCI, in combination with hearing impairment, adds another wrinkle to the ability to communicate effectively. Functioning with a hearing impairment means that one is constantly putting 2 and 2 together, trying to fill in the blanks in attempt to make reasonable sense of what is being said. Even minor changes in word recall that we encounter can create an increased difficulty in quickly and efficiently communicating.
So yes, when you didn’t quite catch what someone said it may indeed be your hearing, or the ability of the brain to process information effectively or maybe a bit of both.
