Difficulties with memory are a relatively frequent complaint with multiple sclerosis. People with MS can have problems of forgetting, confusion and misrecognition. There seems to be no particular pattern to this - it's such an individual issue and, like everything else with MS, depends on where the individual scars or lesions are, in the central nervous system (CNS).

by Lindsay Vowels, Neuropsychologist, MS Society of Victoria

However, the way the memory problems occur can be quite distressing: the energy wasted to go into a room and to forget the item you wanted: the frustration of trying to remember if it was Wednesday or Thursday the plumber said he'd come: the distress of the situation -"If you were interested in me, you'd remember what's happening": and the anger over "I told you, "no you didn't", "yes I did", "no you didn't".

So what can be done about this irritating problem? Like every other MS related issue, there is currently no CURE - but it can be MANAGED. If it's well managed, life goes on much as usual.

The simplest management tool is the large page-to-a-day diary and the establishment of reliable, unbreakable, obsessive habits of consulting it. The small handbag size diaries are easy to lose and need such abbreviated notes, that sometimes the message can't be reconstructed.

The diary is used as a planner of future events, plus recorder of current happenings. A page is divided into two columns with one section used for current and future special events, appointments, dates on which to pay bills etc, and the other section to record what has happened today, for example, phone calls, letters, money spent, groceries bought, and so on.

Reference

Reproduced with kind permission of the MS Society of Australia from their quarterly magazine MS Life (Issue 2 - 2 April 2000)