Run, mouse, run!

I spent three hours today going through a series of tests that included making shapes with blocks, reading off names of colours by ink colour rather than the word printed on the page, reciting back stories I'd heard, matching shapes, and the like. Basically it was a series of intelligence and cognitive tests. I feel like a mouse that's been let out of its maze. I'll get the results in a week or two, but the preliminary results were interesting, and it might help me ultimately do better in daily life and employment. I scored very high in verbal intelligence, within a couple of points of the old IQ test I took before junior high school, and in the 99 percentile of the population, but there's an indication that attention is an issue, and it's affecting my working memory. Years ago I was diagnosed with the non-hyperactive form of attention-deficit disorder based on a much less rigourous test, and I think she felt confident that I still show signs of that and could benefit from treatment. Although my working memory and processing things into practical, working solutions was normal, there was a huge discrepancy between that and my actual intelligence, so I definitely have room to improve there. She'll score the rest of the tests and I'll get more detailed information soon. But I suspect I will be going back on medication. I can definitely tell a difference without it, and things were harder not merely because they progressed in difficulty, but because I was having trouble concentrating at times. There was one test, the last one of the day, where you had to press the space bar on computer when a letter that was not X came on the screen, which sounds really simple, but was hard at times, given the speed, and a natural tendency I have to press buttons maniacally (this is also an issue in my field of vision tests, where I see reflections in my glasses and wind up treating the button like a joystick at times). Another hard one was reading a page of colour-related words not by the words, but by ink colour, except for the ones in boxes. So for example, the word 'red' might be printed in blue, and you would read aloud blue, unless it was in a box, and then it would red. Other things were relatively easy. But apparently I am better at auditory comprehension than spatial relations, or so it seemed when it was over.

Another risk for those of us in the South

In the ‘Stroke Belt,’ Erosion of Memory Is More Likely Too

People in a large area of the American South have long been known to have more strokes and to be more likely to die from them than people living elsewhere in the country.

Now, a large national study suggests the so-called stroke belt may have another troubling health distinction. Researchers have found that Southerners there also are more likely to experience a decline in cognitive ability over several years — specifically, problems with memory and orientation.

Underlying risk factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity may certainly be factors, but the researchers--at least two of whom are themselves Southerners--also question whether those with problems might have had an under-supply of blood to the brain or undetectable 'mini-strokes' as a result of those factors.

Kentucky was not included in the Stroke Belt states studied (they were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee), but it has its fair share of those underlying problems. And as someone who has all but the hypertension (well, I don't have high cholesterol, but my triglycerides are off, so I'm on cholesterol medicine), I found this interesting.

One reason to get a normal amount of sleep

Insomnia may shrink your brain, scans show: Chronic lack of sleep linked to lower gray matter density
I rarely have insomnia (although it does happen on occasion), but I generally don't get enough sleep, although I've been doing much better now that I get home at a reasonable time at night. Still, for years I operated on about five to six hours' sleep, and it wasn't enough. I hope I haven't shrunk any grey matter--I need all the brainpower I can get, since I'm ageing and I'm not sure my brain's ever really been wired right anyway, especially with the ADD.

Speaking of ageing, cognition, and memory, and comic strips, for that matter, a co-worker showed me a great comic by Regan today and I laughed mightily:

Have a good night. I'm off tomorrow afternoon so I plan to pick up some items at the library (a CD and the next two Dresden Files books), but also do some cleaning and work on the game notes. I'll probably blog, too, though. :)