“Memory is the diary that we all carry with us”, Oscar Wilde once wrote. Memory is the storage of information and personal experiences. It gives us the capability to learn and adapt. Thanks to memory, we are who we are.

Unfortunately, there are diseases like Alzheimer’s, in which memory  fades away gradually. This memory loss, however, can be confronted. At NeuronUP, we support cognitive stimulation to improve memory.

In the following, we present six activities to help improve memory in adults and children:

6 activities to improve memory

1. Telling Time

Checking the time is one of the most common daily tasks. We usually look at the clock several times each day. From the outset, this seems to be an easy task, though it can be difficult for people with mild dementia. They can have trouble telling time when there are different units of time (hour, minutes, etc.). Therefore, this exercise is perfect for the therapist to practice with patients suffering from any type of dementia. It mainly focuses on semantic memory and writing skills.

2. Matching Words to Category

This activity is aimed at training semantic memory. Patients must try to match words to the category to which they belong. For example, “maroon” goes with “colors”, sofa” with “furniture” and “Libya” with “countries”. To which one would you match the word “freezer”?

3. Matching Cards

This NeuronUP card-matching activity consists of finding the matching pairs among the face-down cards. This exercise targets episodic memory, selective attention, and working memory.

4. Getting Dressed

This task involves dressing a figure appropriately, taking into account both the part of the body where each item of clothing goes and dressing in a sequential fashion, as well as selecting clothing appropriate to occasion. An ideal activity for working with Alzheimer´s patients.

This activity focuses on procedural memory, body schema, ideational praxis, semantic memory, andplanning.

5. Find the Fish

There are also exercises to work on memory in children. “Find the fish” is a children’s game that consists of accurately remembering the places where the fish appear.

In addition, NeuronUP allows the therapist to choose for each patient the amount of time for memorization, the number of allowable errors, the size of the fish or or whether or not there are guide lines.

Can the kids you’re working with recall the correct spot? It is not that easy: in more difficult levels the kids must be very precise.

This exercise is aimed at training semantic memory and hemineglect in particular.

6. Mole Invasion

“Mole invasion” is another activity for training memory. Patients must first remember in what order the moles come out of the holes and then copy it afterwards except in reverse. This exercise targets both working memory and sustained attention.