All About Aging
An Aging Brain Isn’t a Subpar Brain
Mental lapses people attribute to aging aren’t inevitably dementia and regardless shouldn’t be targets of ridicule
One of the easiest-access targets in U.S. culture — especially in political and comedic commentary — is any hint in someone over age 60 that their brain is “failing” them somehow. A misspeak or a forgotten fact, and we’re off to the political horse races with people tossing around terms like “senile” and “dementia” and “not fit.” We are not a culture that respects aging, even though we are all doing it, and we are definitely a culture that wants to equate signs of aging with “weakness” and “infirmity.”
Yet even when we’re young, we can lose a word, commit a malapropism, or forget a fact. Rick Perry’s most famous debate moment and biggest whoopsie was his inability to recall one of the three agencies he’d promised to starve of funds if he were elected president (it was the Department of Energy). At the time, he was only 61, and there weren’t widespread murmurings that his gaffe resulted from faltering memory function rather than simple failure to fully engage with his own ostensible policies.
People on both sides of the political abyss seem eager to diagnose any older politician who shows the…
