Retaining older folks’s reminiscence — Science News, March 18, 1972
In spite of the age-old craving for the Fountain of Youth, there’s a marked lack of analysis towards retaining vitality in later years. Nonetheless … [researchers] have discovered they will reverse transient reminiscence loss — or senility — in older sufferers by giving them periodic oxygen remedies in a hyperbaric chamber.
Update
Studies nonetheless solely trace that exposing sufferers to 100% oxygen at excessive pressures would possibly give cognitive skills a lift (SN: 10/12/85, p. 236). For occasion, folks with persistent signs after delicate head trauma who underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy outperformed untreated people on reminiscence assessments not less than two months after the remedies, researchers reported in 2020. Exposure to excessive quantities of oxygen additionally has been proven to enhance short-term reminiscence in individuals who have had strokes and people with Alzheimer’s illness. The remedies appear to work by dampening irritation within the mind. The jury remains to be out on whether or not the strategy has an enduring impact on reminiscence.