• The results of this study – carried out on the occasion of World Alzheimer’s Day and the International Day of Older Persons – draw a precise portrait of the memories of our grandparents.
• The first memory that the majority of those surveyed retain (73%) has to do with their family, and only 10% are of a sad or painful moment.
• The birth of their children, the affection of their parents, or the happiness of living as a family; are the most common answers to the question of what is the only memory they would keep.
• Childhood is the forgotten moment they would like to remember the most, followed by wedding and marriage. The death of a loved one, illnesses, the Civil War, and family problems are what the majority of those surveyed would prefer to forget.
• There are hardly any material things among all the responses in the study, with love and family being the themes that appear in the majority of the responses.
On the occasion of World Alzheimer’s Day (September 21) and International Day of Older Persons (October 1), NAMI has carried out a study in all its centers, based on the memories of its residents. The objective was to carry out an x-ray of the memory of the elderly in Spain, through their memories. Those who remain indelible in their memory, the first one they remember, the only one they would stay with; and also which one they would like to delete or what almost forgotten things they would like to remember in great detail.
The results of this study reflect the memory of our grandparents, the customs of their time, and also the history of our country. But through this survey, the aspects that, looking back, they consider most valuable in their lives are also valued: love, family, childhood…
The first memory
The first memory that the majority of those surveyed (73%) retain has to do with their family. The love and attention received from their parents and/or grandparents, moments of fun with their siblings, or events such as the first communion. Another 10% of those surveyed have a first memory that has to do with school, focused on moments of play. For 5% it is something related to friends, while 2% have a vacation as their first memory.
It is interesting to note that the oldest memory that 16% of those surveyed retain does not belong to their childhood, but to more advanced stages of their life and related to the birth of their children or their marriage. It is also worth mentioning that 90% of the first memories refer to a happy moment, and that only two responses talk about something material: sneakers and a doll.
The Civil War, present in many parts of the study, also appears among the answers to this question that specified a specific memory, with the war itself, the march or return from exile, and prison visits to political prisoners, the first memory of 5% of our grandparents.
The only memory they would keep
To the question of “if you had to keep only one memory of your life, which one would you choose?”, the majority responded that the birth of their children (16%), followed by life with their husband/wife (11%) or their wedding day (another 11%). Affectionate moments with parents (10%), or the happiness of living with family (6.5%), are the next favorite memories of our respondents. 88% of the responses have to do with love and affection for loved ones.
Curious answers, to say the least, were also collected; The only memory that any of our residents would have was Córdoba’s promotion to Primera, Manolo Escobar’s songs, a party in the Bahamas, winning an exam, the first time he traveled by plane or stopping living with his mother-in-law.
What you would like to remember
When residents are asked “what thing that you have almost forgotten would you like to remember in great detail?”, the most repeated answer is childhood (13%), which is complemented by communion (5%) and school (4%), adding up to 22% between the three. The second group of responses could be grouped into the wedding (4.5%) and the marriage (4.5%), although only 1% of those surveyed chose the wedding night as what they would like to remember most. Remembering a trip or vacation (6.5%) or the pregnancy or birth of a child (4%); They also obtained a notable percentage of the responses.
Among the most curious answers to this question, there are musical ones: “the lyrics of Julio Iglesias’ songs”, “the songs of Nino Bravo” or “the songs of Raphael, who used to sing them in their entirety and now I only half remember them”; and also of all kinds: “when my sister got married I got drunk” or “my wedding and my divorce.”
Recurring memories: first love, telephone number, car license plate.
85% of those surveyed remember the name of their first love. Some specific numbers, however, have already been erased from their memory, such as the telephone number of their first home (43% remember it) or the license plate of their first car, which 84% of those surveyed have already forgotten.
What they would like to forgetr
62.5% of those surveyed acknowledge that there are things they would prefer to forget, mainly the death of a loved one (26.4% of those who specified what they wanted to forget). Illnesses (8.5%), the Civil War (6.5%) and family problems (6.5%), are other things they would like to erase from their memory.
The study
To carry out this study, a personal survey was carried out among residents of the 20 NAMI centers. The study was carried out between September 1 and 15, 2017.
Some facts about Alzheimer’s
• Alzheimer’s disease (AD), as described by Alois Alzheimer, is a degenerative brain disease in which neurons are lost, an abnormal protein (amyloid) accumulates and characteristic lesions appear (senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles).
• The accumulation of amyloid protein can begin 20 years before the disease begins to manifest its symptoms
• More than 1,200,000 patients suffer from Alzheimer’s in Spain -according to a study by the Spanish Alzheimer’s Confederation, CEAFA-, a disease that affects and marks the lives of more than five million people.
• Alzheimer’s affects 5% of the population between 60 and 69 years old in Spain, 20% of those between 80 and 89 years old and 30% of those over 90 years old.
• According to AESTE data, Spain is the third country in the world with the highest prevalence of dementia (6.3% of Spaniards over 60 years of age), only surpassed by Italy (6.4%) and France (6.5%).
• According to the WHO, there are more than 36 million people affected by this disease worldwide, a figure that continues to increase at the same rate as life expectancy and could double every 20 years. A new case is diagnosed every 70 seconds in Europe.
• Alzheimer’s is the disease that worries older people the most, even ahead of cancer or suffering a heart attack.
