Myth: Older Adults Don’t Remember Anything

Many younger people, even some middle-aged folks believe that older adults have no ability to recall much of anything. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, studies in the last two decades—as the first wave baby boomers reached sixty– blow up this myth. While our short-term memory—what to buy at the store, the name of the new neighbor we met last week at the park, might take a little longer to engage, our crystalized intelligence—our database of acquired and accumulated knowledge over our lifetime– actually peaks in our sixties, and even as late as our early seventies.

Think of the successful people you know who are at the top of their game who are now in their sixties and beyond. The powerhouse of knowledge we have gained through a lifetime also helps us compensate for blips in our short-term memory.

So, taken as a whole, we older adults still have all our smarts!