Last weekend at a church coffee hour I introduced a visitor to a couple of my good friends. Unfortunately, however, I could not at that moment remember the last name of either friend, despite having frequent association with them. So I mumbled their first names while trying desperately to summon up their last ones.

Many would call this a “senior moment.” For reasons explained in another column I would never use such a negative term to typify the inner experience of growing older. Instead, I think of it as a memory lapse that happens at every age, though admittedly it occurs more often in later years.

Memory lapses of this sort I take as signs of our having done a lot of living. As the son of New York Times health columnist Jane Brody told her: “What do you expect? With all you've stuffed into your head all these years, something is bound to fall out.”

And some inability to remember is positively a blessing. Recently I heard tell of a man who could not forget anything; his slightest actions and his every thought engraved itself on his memory. This can only be thought of as a disease, a terrible affliction.

However, not being able to remember facts is undeniably worrisome to most older people. Often it makes us fear something may be radically wrong with us. All too readily we jump to the conclusion that we are “losing it.”

When such instances of memory loss multiply, many older people become convinced they have started on the downward path to Alzheimer’s disease. Such an assumption is often rash and without foundation but causes suffering nonetheless.

Many causes other than dementia can be at work making us lose the ability to come up with the right name or fact. Depression, inadequate nourishment, side effects of medication –  –  these can be hidden thieves of memory. Regrettably, too many people do not get skilled medical treatment directed at finding the reason for memory loss.

Many scientists are studying the human brain intensively and can provide some answers. For a summary of current knowledge on this subject, I recommend a brochure published by the AARP Andrus Foundation and The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.

Entitled “Memory Loss and Aging,” it is part of a series called “Staying Sharp: Current Advances in Brain Research.” This brochure is available at AARP, (800) 424-3410.

(You can also request three other brochures in the Staying Sharp series. To make sure of their availability free of charge, I have called the number myself.)

“Memory is not a single process,” say the authors of the brochure, and they distinguish two different kinds of memory. The first focuses on daily facts such as the names of friends. The second contains skills and procedures, such as how to kick a soccer ball or cook a chicken.

These two kinds of memory depend on different structures inside the brain so a person, for example, might remember how to drive a car but not how to find the way back to his own neighborhood.

Researchers believe we can keep memory sharp by cultivating certain skills. The brochure mentioned above lists eight pieces of advice: relax, concentrate, focus, slow down, organize, write it down, repeat it, visualize it.

Besides those already mentioned, some other activities may also help keep brains vigorous. Physical exercise surely does; so does good nutrition. I love doing crossword puzzles anyway but I also believe they rev up my brain power.

The brochure also offers helpful information about the current state of research into Alzheimer’s disease. Hopes for delaying, preventing, or reversing this illness depend on future research breakthroughs. But currently three new medications have been “modestly successful” in providing some help to people in the early stages of the disease.

However, researchers freely admit being unable to answer many questions of crucial importance to older people. If, for instance, they could pinpoint the differences between garden variety memory loss and the kind that leads toward devastating illness, we would all breathe easier.

Jane Brody, the columnist mentioned above, recently alerted her readers to some of the rackets connected with this issue that flourish in the land. “Memory pills,” for example, are on the market but no one can attest to their value. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has reviewed the alleged research behind such medication and found the claims worthless, except for those behind one very expensive product “Don’t waste your money,” Brody advises readers, advice that I endorse.

Incidentally, about the last names of my two dear friends: I thought of hers as I woke up at dawn the next day; his came to me halfway through the morning. Something mysterious must be at work in the recesses of my memory dredging up the forgotten, often taking its own sweet time to do it.

Richard Griffin