Functions Of Memory

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In psychology, memory is an organism’s ability to store, retain, or later retrieve information. These organisms such as humans and animals store their memory information in their brain. Memory is also based on the duration of memory retention and identifies three distinct types of memory: short-term, sensory, and long-term memory. Sensory memory is the ability to look at an item and remember exactly what it looked like with just a second of observation and memorization. Some of the information in sensory memory is then transferred to short-term memory. Short-term memory allows one to recall something from several seconds to as long as a minute without rehearsal. While short-term memory encodes information with sound, long-term memory encodes semantically. But much of the current knowledge of memory stems from the study of memory disorders. The details of memory can be interrupted by almost any disease or injury that affects the brain. But the most common type of memory disease is Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia which takes away the very existence of a person. AD targets the memory and gradually destroys the mind. AD accounts for 50-70 percent of dementia cases and significantly impacts the lives of patients, families, caregivers, communities and society. Unfortunately there is no cure for AD but five pharmaceutical drugs have been approved in the United States as primary AD therapies to slow the progression of symptoms. But generally only for six to twelve months half of the patients who begin the drug therapy may show no improvement. (Kidd, 2008, p.85) The term dementia refers to a group of disorders that cause cognitive decline as a result of death or damage to brain cells. Dementia causes weaken in at least two of four essential cognitive functions: (1) memory, (2) ability to speak or understand language, (3)
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