One gets you a ride, the other doesn’t

Does our brain scramble signals as we age? Consider this story:

I have a toll-free business line (an 800 number). For several years, I’ve periodically retrieved voicemail messages from elderly people, requesting a ride from or to unfamiliar destinations, leaving only their name and a 7-digit number. Though this doesn’t happen often, it’s grown increasingly frustrating — not because I mind getting the misdialed calls, but because these seniors obviously need a ride somewhere, and I’m unable to let them know that I’m not the service they want.

The other day I received such a call, twice within the hour, but this time the caller left her full name as well as phone number with area code. I returned the call, explained I was not the business she intended to contact, and asked what number she wanted. It turns out callers who reach me have been transposing the final two digits of the transport service’s number — which results in my number! I was surprised so many seniors have made the same mistake over the years, but immediately searched the company online, and called to explain the situation.
It’s a non-profit, rural transportation service in Minnesota, serving seniors in eight counties. When I saw their phone number prominently displayed on their website, it looked so much like mine at a glance I could understand how an elder might confuse the digits. The question is, how could we resolve the issue going forward? Since neither they nor I wish to change our business phone number, this calls for some ingenuity. As a start, I suggested they might want to print attractive, wallet-sized cards with the number in large type, and encourage men and women to keep the card handy for easy use.

Aging dyslexia

I joked, “Maybe aging makes us dyslexic.” And then I found this article. According to a study published in the journal Aphasiology, “normal aging makes us mildly ‘dyslexic’ [by impairing] higher brain functioning. In part, this is consistent with slower mentation and speech processing, lapses in memory and concentration, etc.”

While dyslexia generally focuses more on language skills than numbers, people who are aware of their dyslexia early on (such as filmmaker Steven Spielberg) learn to compensate by emphasizing their strengths.

At the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, researchers are focused on identifying whether the dyslexic trait influences the aging process, thus helping to understand how aging-related diseases might be misdiagnosed or incorrectly treated in individuals who have a life-long history of dyslexia.

So if some of your reverse mortgage prospects arrive at the office across the street, or insist they’ve left you several phone messages, now you’ll have a better understanding of what may be behind the apparent errors.

“Distracted aging”?

To put a positive spin on it, maybe “dyslexia” is our brain’s way of attempting to subconsciously reverse the aging process.

Or maybe, says humorist Joyce Wadler, it’s simply “distracted aging”, which is akin to distracted driving, though possibly more dangerous. Wadler writes:

“Walking into a room and forgetting what I wanted is something I have read often happens to people in their 60s and is not a cause for worry. I do now and then have something I think of as spatial dyslexia, in which, to give an example, I am heading to the kitchen cabinet to put away the Special K, and find myself opening the refrigerator door. This does worry me a bit, mostly because of a story a girlfriend told me about a great-aunt when we were young and callow, i.e., in our late 20s: The aunt is ironing when the phone rings. She picks up the iron and puts it to her ear. We thought this was so preposterous it was hilarious. Now in the rare instances I use an iron I regard it like a tiger in the living room I have raised from birth: It seems O.K., but any minute it could turn on me.”

Transposed telephone numbers may not get seniors the ride they request, but at least it’s a safe mistake.