email from Bernie

Dear Veera/JB

most of our school/college contacts are past late 60's and their 70's.

we should all be grateful for the more recent confirmation that neuronal replication, was not a myth,but a fact,as many noticed,

but were unable to explain how an old dog ,learns new tricks.

retiring from professions or vocations, forced at age 50-55 was a well known harbinger of death or brain death. Learning to use the less dominant hemisphere, not only taps a vast unused resource,

but also prepares one ,in the event of some neuronal damage,post embolic or other stroke related events. We forget the impact of old injuries,including mild cerebral trauma, manifesting decades later.

The impact of depression, anxiety,panic states mood changes

and other common disorders, including hostility,anger,jealousy,that occur ,but not fully recognized ,diagnosed or treated. They do lead to mental status dysfunction, and most are likely to respond to treatment, early recognition,and when less subject to denial.like I am fine,but I know you are worse, or related attitudes. Early recognition of MCI[minimum cognitive impairment] impacted the care of millions, but is only freely available to a very small minority. Ignorance and resistance,to consider the possibility of impairment,is a great obstacle. Also like in Sri Lanka, the availability of treatment,is a major factor, for the vast majority. Training the brain,will make it better,as JB has explained, but is ignore, we are functionally better ,much better, in most areas of cerebral and intellectual performance. In some areas we are less efficient, like in running,cannot swim 100 fast laps, or lift heavy weights. But we can read ,retain recollect,much more and would surprise some of our old teachers. I used to discuss this with Dr Anthonis,DJ,Daphne[latter 2 my uncle and aunt, and were embarrassed,when addressed them as such,especially after my wife Sheila started the conversation] we recalled so many incidents,

even some variations with Appendectomy procedures[even though I branched out to Psychiatry/neuro psych/forensic psych,many decades ago] most of the conversations were in non medical areas.

remembering old names numbers was one item. We have vast resources now, that we couldn't imagine before the pre Arthur Clark era. We can speak to a computer and or I phone and get the dumb contraption,to talk back and give us the information. We can write or type with errors,and receive auto correction, and the list is endless

future potential ,not even contained by our imagination.We recognized that our genes are immortal after all, and only the physical body is the transient,limiting factor.

Then who cares? Other latent clinical features,emerge,as we grow older, and we do not know how to include these,in our discussions or diagnosis. If we diagnose ,for instance ,with 6 symptoms and signs, what happens if we have only 5 or 5.99 confirmed.Are we allowed to diagnose with conviction? We may have 95% of the symptoms of MCI but remain undiagnosed,untreated,neglected?/

That is the question.

Bernard de Silva

Cincinnati/MT lavinia