was just wondering what happens when the old brain starts to wither. the missionaries in my area found an old french guy that had been inactive for about 50 years, had been a branch president and the whole bit. they couldn't get his wife to get with the program but they drug him to church, got enough money to get him a temple recommend and got him to the temple. he was about 90 years old and "wanted to get to the CK"

is that sick what they did to him for money or what?

but was his brain even functioning properly at that age?

hope i don't get like that and they find me and rope me back in and take my money. oops, i forgot, i have been gone so long i forgot i already paid up and went to the temple.

I think it’s more of a “use it or lose it” thing.

I play with some musicians who are in their 80s. Their brains are fully functioning music wise. They have some physical issues as all folks that age do. It really depends on the person, taking good care of yourself and luck with genetics.

I have no doubt that Nelson is a very intelligent person and his brain, at 90, is probably functioning better (as to higher cognitive functions) than many people half his age. That said, he is operating under the influence of false religion, resulting in compulsions that range from trying to hammer square pegs through smaller round holes (figuratively speaking) and trying to find "revelation" and "divine inspiration" in mundane/ordinary thoughts.

As a trained and reputable heart surgeon, he obviously has the ability to master complex information and apply knowledge in a rational and logical way. He also has the ability to compartmentalize and rationalize the irrationality of his religious beliefs when it suits him. And it has apparently suited him to do this his entire life.

His campaign against the "Mormon" nickname, for example is not a result of old age. He was banging on about that for most of his adult life. He just never had the power to make other people comply with his preferences. Now he does.

he's not smart enough to know that the world will still say "mormon", he can't get rid of that offending word

will ultimately be successful.

But he probably gets a kick out of watching the "faithful" Mormons dancing to his tune right now, as they bend over backwards to comply with his royal edicts. Every single day in the world of Mormon people, you can be sure that one Mormon is correcting another Mormon who has accidentally slipped up and used the "forbidden nickname".

Nelson could probably get 100,000 Mormons to eat earthworms if he presented the idea to them as a new "revelation".

The Mormons I know from my wife's ward are already calling themselves "Mormon" again after a short period of trying to remove the burr from Russell's saddle.

The name change has been tried several times before. It never sticks.

Wally Prince Wrote


> he is operating under the influence of false
> religion, resulting in compulsions

Excellent post. Yes strange compulsion about the name!!!!

Nelson's brain got rusty.

Just a sampling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-fcv-aSRlk

It's a false assumption to claim that old people are all weak minded and senile.

Ageism.

I'm friends with a man Rusty's age. We sketch together. He sketches daily. Seems to me his faculties are all there.

My dad's nickname was Rusty. Otherwise he and Russ Nelson had little in common other than both men were/are LDS and both men were/are elders.

My dad was more of a mensch in my book. He was more honest, had more integrity, and wasn't in charge of a corrupt organization that sets out to fleece millions upon millions of its duped followers.

One more reason to consider replacing some of the crusty old patriarchal brains with female counterparts in the GA and Q12 is that women's mental faculties age better than men's do.

It will be a cold day in hell before Russ or his cronies take notice of that not so minor detail.

"Why do women tend to stay “mentally sharp” in their later years? According to researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, it may be that women’s brains shrink slower with age compared to men’s brains.

The university’s new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests women’s brains appear to be about three years younger than the brains of their male counterparts of the same chronological age. ...

Previous research has shown evidence of less memory decline and brain atrophy in aging females compared to males. Healthy, aging females are also more likely to outperform males on cognitive tests.

“It’s not that men’s brains age faster — they start adulthood about three years older than women, and that persists throughout life,” Goyal said.

“What we don’t know is what it means. I think this could mean that the reason women don’t experience as much cognitive decline in later years is because their brains are effectively younger, and we’re currently working on a study to confirm that.”

The brain’s sugar use (or glycolysis) “might explain some of this resilience, since brain aerobic glycolysis is involved in learning and neurite growth,” but researchers note there are likely many factors (like hormones) influencing sex differences on the brain.

Researchers are currently studying a different cohort to validate metabolic brain age, “determine its predictive potential, and answer why sex might affect it.”

https://www.thestar.com/life/2019/02/07/female-brains-remain-youthful-as-male-brains-wither-study-suggests.html

My grandfather was alert and active until he hit 98 when everything just shut down.

On the other hand I've seen people in their 60s who couldn't remember their name.

The nun I took dishes to this past week is in her 80's. She's doing fine mentally.

People where I worship live well into their 90's. One guy lived to be well over 100 not too long ago. Their faculties were pretty good all things considered for older folks.

But it's true that brain function does decline as we age notwithstanding.

"Common memory changes that are associated with normal aging include:

Difficulty learning something new: Committing new information to memory can take longer.

Multitasking: Slowed processing can make processing and planning parallel tasks more difficult.

Recalling names and numbers: Strategic memory that helps memory of names and numbers begins to decline at age 20.

Remembering appointments: Without cues to recall the information, appointments can be put safely in storage and then not accessed unless the memory is jogged.

While some studies show that one third of older people struggle with declarative memory (memories of facts or events that have been stored and can be retrieved), other studies indicate that one fifth of 70-year-olds perform cognitive tests just as well as their 20-year-old counterparts....

Scientists are currently piecing together sections of the giant puzzle of brain research to determine how the brain subtly alters over time to cause these changes.

General changes that are thought to occur during brain aging include:

Brain mass: Shrinkage in the frontal lobe and hippocampus - areas involved in higher cognitive function and encoding new memories - starting around the age of 60 or 70 years.

Cortical density: Thinning of the outer-ridged surface of the brain due to declining synaptic connections. Fewer connections may contribute to slower cognitive processing.

White matter: White matter consists of myelinated nerve fibers that are bundled into tracts and carry nerve signals between brains cells. Myelin is thought to shrink with age, and as a result, slow processing and reduce cognitive function.

Neurotransmitter systems: Researchers suggest that the brain generates less chemical messengers with aging, and it is this decrease in dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and norepinephrine activity that may play a role in declining cognition and memory and increased depression...."

And then there are the "Super Agers!"

""SuperAgers" are a rare group of individuals over the age of 80 years who have memories as sharp as healthy people decades younger.

Research by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL, compared SuperAgers with a control group of same-age individuals. They found that the brains of SuperAgers shrink at a slower rate than their age-matched peers, which results in a greater resistance to the typical memory loss observed with age, thus revealing that age-related cognitive decline is not inevitable.

"We found that SuperAgers are resistant to the normal rate of decline that we see in average elderly, and they're managing to strike a balance between life span and health span, really living well and enjoying their later years of life," says Emily Rogalski, associate professor at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center (CNADC) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

By studying how SuperAgers are unique, the researchers hope to unearth biological factors that might contribute to maintaining memory ability in advanced age."

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319185.php

when you are around an old person for a short time and you don't know them all that well, they can seem quite normal.
every time i took my mom to the doctor she seemed normal to him. ok buddy, spend a whole day with her.

once while visiting the mother of a sister that had died, the mother said she was so glad to see us, that she just got home from work. now you have to know we are in kansas. i asked her where she worked and she said new york. and she was waiting for her daughter to come see her. she didn't understand why her daughter was late. she only had one daughter.

now, had a stranger had that conversation with her, except for the job in new york, she sounded quite normal. that is my experience with a lot of old people. i am not convinced all these old GA's are all that sharp.

My dad said that when he was a kid, everyone was afraid of old people. They were too smart and had time to make trouble. My dad would be 110 next Wednesday...

I read an article about attorneys who were still practicing into their 90's and beyond. The thing they were exceptional at was to directly focus in on the important variables of the legal agreement or case or what have you. That is where the benefits of experience paid off for them.

Many years ago I had occasion to be in the downtown Salt Lake building where the president of the church has his office. The door to Joseph Fielding Smith's office was open and he was sitting there behind a perfectly clear desk staring off into space and in the gloom since all the lights in the room were off. My companion looked in and said, "Look there's Pres. Smith. He doesn't realize that the lights are off." I don't think he realized the real truth of his comment.

Had you not thought that he might have known that the lights were off and just wanted to sit in the dark, contemplating stuff?

A lot of people like to do that. Especially older people who may have lived in the time before we had to have electric light 24/7.

He may have been doing nothing at all sitting there except staring straight ahead.

I worked with an 84 year old woman who did that before our workplace forced her into retirement. She was a receptionist (for decades, bless her heart.) When she got older she'd stare off into space straight ahead like she was wide awake but she was sleeping with her eyes open.

People would walk past her security window to be let through the security door; and with her eyes wide open she didn't see a one of them. They'd have to knock on the window to get her attention every time. Poor Sally. She was the quintessential Jewish marm. Like in the Woody Allen movies. I loved her like a grandma.

But she could sleep with her eyes wide open. I betcha that when a 90 plus year old church president is sitting at his desk with the lights out staring straight ahead, he may be sleeping with his eyes open too. Just a hunch. I could be wrong. It was a 27 year old woman receptionist where I now work who told me she can sleep with her eyes open. That was the first time I heard of it.

:)