AIDS DEMENTIA COMPLEX: HIV AND THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM-MENTAL CHANGES: LOSS OF MEMORY
The major change in mental abilities is an increase in forgetfulness, a loss of memory. People often have problems remembering only the recent past, not the distant past, and the problem is usually more annoying than profound. People nonetheless find it distressing. They can remember childhood experiences but not what they had for breakfast. They have trouble telling their doctors their recent histories. They forget why they entered a room, or where they parked the car, or what they wanted at the grocery store, or what they did that day. They forget appointments and become confused about time or place. People deal with memory problems by finding ways around them. Dean Lombard, who kept forgetting to take his medication and to eat crackers before he took it, bought an inexpensive pillbox equipped with a beeper that beeped when he should eat, and then again when he was to take the medicine. Other people put their medications into pillboxes that are organized by days of the week. Lisa Pratt repeated anything she wanted her husband to remember several times over a period of days, and that seemed to help him retain it. Some people keep lists, in notebooks or in pocket calendars, to remind themselves of calls they want to make or dates to keep or things to ask the doctor. Dean bought a memo book that fit in his shirt pocket. “I always carry it,” he said. “I know enough to write something down immediately if I want to remember it: pick up the parts at Sears, pick up my mother. The minute I know, I write it down.” In general, people try to limit the number of things they carry in their heads: “I don’t deal with twenty things at once,” said Dean.*145\191\2*
