The Mabley Archive: Give the same thought to your mind that you give to your retirement

In 1988, when longtime Glenview resident Jack Mabley brought his column to the Daily Herald, he made a couple of requests: 1. Let him keep his ugly, old green chair. 2. Launch an edition for his hometown. He kept the chair. And now, more than a decade after his passing in 2006, his second request has been granted. This column is from Feb. 17, 1997.

The sweetest headline I've seen in years was in Monday's New York Times. It read:

"Studies Suggest Older Minds Are Surprisingly Strong and Brain Power Can Grow."

That's what I keep telling them at the office.

How many brain cells did you lose today? Not as many as you may think.

We start losing the cells at age 20 or 21, and it's common myth that when we get into our 70s and 80s, there's not much left.

Well, we have billions of those little buggers up there between our ears, and it turns out we can afford to lose a bunch of them without much effect on our thinking and reasoning powers.

What's more, when part of the brain that is more susceptible to loss of cells loses them, another part of the brain compensates for the loss.

Until a few years ago, studies of the brain, and the mind, were more guesswork than science.

The development of magnetic resonance imaging and other scanning devices allows scientists to look inside the skull while the brain still is functioning.

Other research comes on brains after death.

Under that headline was this advice: "Data from men and women who continue to flourish into their 80s and 90s show that in a healthy brain, any loss of brain cells is relatively modest and largely confined to specific areas, leaving others robust."

Of course all this cheerful news for people who are old and those who will become old applies to only two age groups.

Dr. Guy McKhann of Johns Hopkins Medical School defines three groups of the aged.

"One does remarkably well, aging very successfully into their 80s and 90s," he writes.

"The second group slides a bit, having some problems with memory and recall, but the problems are typically more aggravating than they are real."

The third group largely consists of people with Alzheimer's disease, accounting for about 15 percent of those in their 70s and 30 percent to 40 percent of those in their 80s.

There are thousands of successful older people in our suburbs qualified to testify to personal success in aging.

But I have a forum and presume to speak for them.

When I became an octogenarian one day last fall, I looked in the mirror, stretched my limbs, confirmed they were in reasonably good working order and said, "Hey, this isn't bad at all. I like it."

Overall knowledge and vocabulary continue to grow for about 10 percent of people above 70.

"The question that interests many people who are headed toward 70," states Dr. Judith Saxton of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, "is how and why one ends up in this 10 percent. Is a person's neurological fate predetermined?

"Or is there something that can be done to stay healthy and mentally alert?"

I can answer that. There's a lot you can do to stay healthy and alert.

How do most of us prepare for retirement and old age? The first, and often only, concern is money. We shovel money into Keogh plans and IRAs and savings and Social Security and hope for "security."

How much time is allotted to planning how to keep the mind stimulated and challenged, and to keep the body toned and active?

Bridge and golf won't do it.

We have aches and pains all our lives, or at least I did, but when the same aches and pains come when you're old, it's a shrug and "well, you're getting old."

That's bunk. It's defeatism. It's surrender to an enemy that is vulnerable to common-sense living habits and a mind determined to make the late years the best.

Corny, isn't it? But it works.