Tricks, to enhance Memory for Multiple Sclerosis patients

Have you ever gone to the grocery store and forgotten an item you went there to get? A technique used to improve learning and memory in multiple sclerosis patients may help you, too.

Researchers have completed two clinical trials testing a therapy for multiple sclerosis patients called the Story Memory Technique (SMT). It’s a behavioral, non-medical therapy designed to help people learn new information. In both trials, patients scored better on memory tests and reported that their “everyday” memory improved after treatment.

One of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) is cognitive, or brain impairments. Forty to 60 percent of MS patients have memory impairments. “What we found in research done in the 1990s is that they are having trouble learning new information,” Dr. Nancy Chiaravalloti told DailyRx in an interview.

Dr. Chiaravalloti led both trial studies, and serves as the Director of the Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory at Kessler Foundation Research Center.

Dr. Chiaravalloti said that the Story Memory Technique is designed to help people learn new information. “If you expose them to that information over and over and over again – more than you would a healthy person – they can learn it, they can remember it, and use it appropriately,” she said. “But they need more help initially learning new information.”

The Story Memory Technique is a combination of two methods of learning, Dr. Chiaravalloti explained. The first technique is visualizing information, or imagining words as pictures.

“A lot of what we do in our daily lives is based on verbal information, or words,” she said. “If you visualize information theoretically, you’re engaging more brain regions in helping you learn that information.”

The second part is putting the information into a context. “If we put things in a larger context and relate them to each other, we remember them better than if we’re remembering little pieces of information that aren’t related to each other,” said Dr. Chiaravalloti. “It teaches people how to take unrelated information and put it into a unified context.”

The final step is to combine the two techniques. Dr. Chiaravalloti gave the example of remembering a grocery or to-do list. If a person has to go to the bank, pay the bills, and pick up dry cleaning, they combine all of those seemingly unrelated things into one image. Imagine a pile of bills lying in front of a bank, and the dry cleaning hanging on the door.