Memory is referred to as long or short term but the faculty of having one is not as easy as that. The short term memory or memory that is forgotten after a brief interval, can be converted into long term for example and their different types of memory besides just seeing and recalling the phone number of a company listing. One additional form of memory would then would be genetic, something that is passed on from parent to child. As in the case of a defective gene passed on from mother to child and expressed in the son and not in the daughter one can think of diseases like haemophilia.
Most people know that the stages of visual memory involve seeing an object, then recalling it at a later date and referring to it when prompted. But the visual sense is not the only means of obtaining a reference to an object. Sounds can be recalled as can the touch of a familiar object or the taste of a remembered flavour.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that we store our memories in certain parts of our brain and that recall depends on how fast we can get to those regions. Usually recalling an event deteriorates with time but there are exercises comprising brainteasers that can keep a person's brain active so that the likelihood of memory loss is diminished. Some doctors recommend that a person keep mentally active by doing puzzles or crossword puzzles because these stimulate the neurons responsible for keeping your memory.
Once people develop a sense of structure to words they hear or speak, they can remember them in the form of sentences. Naturally the sentences cannot be remembered if the letters making up the words are all jumbled up, so the order of those letters or characters and their arrangement in space is an essential tool in language memory. When learning a language, it is more practical when the student recalls the sentence visually as well as orally so as not to confuse sounds that have not been differentiated well.
Normal memory loss should not be confused with Alzheimer's, a severe form of dementia where there is a gradual decrease in the ability of the person to remember short term, but as the disease progresses, he loses his long term memory until he is unable to recognize family members. Body functions also become impaired. Dementia results in a reduction of the person's cognitive abilities and that affects his reasoning as well as his memory.
