Half a Mind to ..

Life after brain injury – one small victory at a time.

Tag: short-term-memory

  • Small problems too big (Insight 040)

    Small problems too big (Insight 040)

    Some small problems are now too big to fit in working memory (Insight 040)

    Before my brain injury, I rarely thought about thinking.

    Like most people, I simply got on with it.

    If someone asked me to multiply 17 by 13, I would mentally break the problem into smaller pieces. Ten times seventeen is 170. Three times seventeen is 51. Add them together and the answer is 221.

    The arithmetic is straightforward. What matters is that the intermediate results have to be held somewhere while the calculation is being completed.

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  • Sorting medication (full story 044)

    Sorting medication (full story 044)

    Quick summary: A medication mistake revealed that my problem was not simply forgetting tablets. I was losing my place in the sequence. A new pill organiser, bought for travel convenience, unexpectedly offered a simple solution: raising the next compartment so the organiser remembers the process when my brain cannot.

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