Your cognitive skills are a collection of what some medical and psychological experts refer to as your executive decision making abilities. A lofty and important sounding phrase. One that seems to describe a portion of the mind as the corporate headquarters where all of the important stuff is decided upon. In other words, think of your cognitive skills as being comparable to the combined and integrated evaluating talents of the Chief Executive Officer or CEO in the executive office of a major corporation. As each business must have a designated leader to direct and guide it’s actions, so must each of us. Top down direction and initiative.
One of the most fundamental of these so-called executive abilities is conscious self-awareness.
Self awareness means you are cognizant and mindful of what you are doing at all times. Not only staying focused upon your task but the propriety of it for the situation at hand as well. One example might be not only putting on clothes before going outdoors each day, but dressing in attire appropriate for the weather, social or business occasion, etc. Another one is how your cognitive skills are called into play in recognizing levels of peril or danger to oneself or others. Cognitive skill usage also is involved in knowing the difference between what kind of language and joke telling is permissible among close friends as opposed to what is acceptable while sitting in the audience of a broadway play.
As we grew from childhood into our adolescent years our self awareness passed through a rather excessive phase. This would explain the following kinds of self talk in the teen years.
What will I look like in these clothes?
Is my face breaking out again?
I can’t be seen in this skirt: it’s 2 years old and sooo not even in style!
Is my zipper all the way up?
Will my girlfriends like me if I don’t have the very latest Coach bag?
As we grew older passing through the joys, trials and challenges of life, our cognitive skills matured and grew more refined and seasoned with us. As we entered the decades of our twenties and thirties, we came to make fewer mistakes having to do with poor judgment and what was a sound and appropriate decision for each situation.
By the time most of us reached our forties and fifties we had smartened up as to how to act, how to dress, what to say and what not to say in most all conceivable situations. This also included our skills at handling our careers, finance and debt obligations, our health, social relationships, etc.
Our collection of those executive abilities grew, evolved and finally matured. The right thing to do at just the right time.
Unfortunately, some where along the way, some of us begin to shed some of our lifelong learned cognitive skills. Imperceptible at first, like loosing body hair or flakes of dried skin. It begins to occur but we do not feel it or sense it when it happens.
Causation can occur from stroke, dementia, head trauma from a violent accident or a disease such as Alzheimer’s.
When the cause is Alzheimer’s or one of the many other dementia's, the early signs (to others around you) may start when you are in your 60’s. For others, it may come a decade later. By the time a sizable number of folks reach their eighties, a noticeable level of cognitive loss will have set in.
The built-in device that governed and prevented any unwelcome, unrestricted, unwise and purely impulsive behaviors starts to short out. The brains’ CEO has emptied his desk and left the building.
There are no announcing alarm bells or whistles that go of to alert the victim. It all takes place in silence and begins to take a noticeable toll upon you. You don’t see it, you don’t feel it, but others around you including your immediate family members see the changes quite clearly.
Our cognitive abilities are a precious set of decision making skills that reside in the brain of all of us. Conscious self-awareness is taken for granted by the vast majority of us. When these collective skills start to silently sneak away, everyone around us takes notice. The one who is being subjected to the silent burglary within their mind is the last to see it.
For family members who are compelled to step in and handle the affairs of their loved ones in this plight, it makes for a daunting challenge to your patience and temperament. My wife and I are presently backpacking as caregivers through this maelstrom.
Jeff Dodson
March 25th 2011
