Is the situation familiar when you return home, because it seems that you forgot to turn off the gas, electricity, water? Or when, when watching a movie, you don’t remember the names of the heroes, or you buy the wrong products for borscht? Temporary memory loss can be the first signs of onset dementia. Fearfully? One should not be afraid, but just get tested. And if earlier for these purposes it was necessary to spend time searching for tests on the Internet, now it is offered to go directly to the metro. The RG correspondent found out the details.
This is the action of the Moscow metro, the Memory of Generations charitable foundation and the All-Russian public movement, medical volunteers. You can check your mental health at the Kurskaya and Kievskaya ring stations, as well as at Mayakovskaya and Turgenevskaya. “We have provided sites at four metro stations with high passenger flows,” Yulia Temnikova, deputy head of Mosmetro, told RG. “If we get good feedback from passengers, we will support the initiative to repeat it.” While the promotion will last until October 3.
So, exit No. 1-4 from the Kurskaya station of the Circle Line. There is a corner opposite the information counter. This is a temporary structure that allows you to create a semblance of an office. Immediately, a medical volunteer handed out booklets in which it is written that it is easier to prevent cognitive disorders than to become one of 150 people with dementia who did not return home and were lost in the city. And in order not to become like that, you need to pass the test. You can do it right here, the result is anonymous. I sit down at the table. They turn on my tablet, there are 25 questions on the screen.
For example, you need to recall the name of 12 states, depict how the hands are located, if on the dial “ten minutes fourteen o’clock”, connect letters and numbers in a certain sequence. After receiving all the answers, the program calculates the result. If the score is from 22 to 17 points, there is nothing to worry about; if it is lower, there are changes in brain activity. “I am a pensioner, but I work, everything is fine with memory,” says Natalya Gordeeva, a resident of Kuntsevo. The answers took her longer than she had planned: she could not figure out how to make three out of four triangles, removing only two “sticks”. But the result was good.
As a medical volunteer, a first-year student of the medical college of the Moscow State Medical University named after M.V. Sechenova Angelina Kuznetsova, on the first day she tested more than 20 people. “The average age is over 40, many of them have low results,” the student complains. Her classmate Artemy Peskov added that eighteen people tested on the first day of the action. Among those tested was the master of the game “What? Where? When?” Alexander Druz. “The test is simple, but versatile, – he shared with” RG “. – I do not regret the time spent. After all, the psyche is the most precious thing in life.” The host of the program “Field of Miracles” Leonid Yakubovich agrees with him. “It’s a great idea to transfer diagnostics to transport, and even free of charge,” Yakubovich said.
You can check your health by passing this and other tests constantly on the project portal. Note that in the capital there are special specialized medical institutions that deal with problems with memory impairment. This is a network of “Clinics of Memory”, opened by the Moscow Department of Health.
Direct speech
Head of the “Memory Clinic” medical rehabilitation center, psychiatrist Viktor Savilov:
The main task of the doctor is to identify cognitive impairments in the early stages, before dementia develops, in particular Alzheimer’s disease. The action on the subway, which you mentioned, in my opinion, is a good way to draw attention to the problem. But it must be solved with the participation of a specialist.
Precursors of dementia can often look mundane and familiar. For example, leaving the apartment, it seems that you forgot to turn off the light or iron, you have to return. After going to the store, it turns out that they forgot to buy something important. You watch a movie and you can’t remember the name of the actor. If such stories are repeated often, this is an excuse to test your cognitive health.
To do this, you can seek advice from the specialists of the “Memory Clinic”, and the specialist will already determine what therapeutic measures you need. Memory clinics are designed to help those people who have mild cognitive impairments. This is a social project of the capital, visits and treatment are free.
Currently, there are eight such clinics in the capital. The rehabilitation course lasts six weeks and includes various trainings for the development of higher mental functions. Since the opening of the first “Memory Clinic” in 2016, more than 8,000 Moscow residents have undergone rehabilitation. For those who cannot attend the Memory Clinics for one reason or another, a distance cognitive rehabilitation course has been introduced.
By the way, you can make an appointment at the “Memory Clinic” by calling +7 499 785 48 30 (from 12:00 to 15:00 on weekdays) or through the clinic’s website memoryclinic.ru.
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