Passover, like many of the Jewish or other religions’ holidays, flourishes as a combination of family reunification, religious rituals and the sharing of food, a key component of most religious festivals.

People often have associations about Passover because it is almost universally celebrated in one way or another and most Jews have long-standing vivid recollections of Passovers past.

At one recent seder, the memories of previous experiences were recalled by family and friends seated around the table. The focus of recollections ranged from the effects of wine on the young and the dishes served to how one recipe was different from another and how our forebears conducted their seders compared to how we do it now.

A Passover phenomenon that I observed this year at a seder was the introduction of new versions of the Haggadah, which were used alongside older standard versions, as well as a revered grandparent’s old Haggadah. In terms of the conduct and flow of the seder, it was at times a humorous challenge as each person’s reference point was periodically different from the one being read from and the flow of the narrative was at times interrupted. This could be interpreted as a positive expansion of the Passover story experience or an impediment to completing the chronicle and getting to the meal while the readers were still conscious enough to enjoy it.

The experience reminded me of a previous experience from which all of us can learn, and which I understand as a geriatrician, but which is sometimes perceived with some expression of amazement – that is, having an elder in the family, especially one who is experiencing cognitive impairment, being able to effectively conduct the seder from an original Haggadah, with the appropriate rhythm and tones that he had used throughout his years of leading seders. This might be the same person who cannot remember the details of a conversation that occurred 10 minutes before.

The importance of this observation is that those of us who deal with aging parents and relatives have to understand that so-called “memory loss” as the hallmark of dementia is somewhat of a misnomer. It is not remote memory per se that is lost – in fact, distant memories are often vividly retrievable. It is the immediate recall and retention component of memory that is the main attribute of the memory impairment we see in dementia.

This phenomenon, for the lay person, often seems counter-intuitive.  I have heard family members say and I once had a medical legal case that reflected this: “I can’t believe my father does not remember what he had for breakfast a half hour ago, but can tell me the whole menu of the first Passover he had when he arrived in Canada from Poland in 1938.”

In the legal case, a lawyer who was asked to assist in a will change erroneously believed that because he could reminisce with the patient about his knowledge of the lawyers’ father from 40 years previously, he should be able to change his will, about which he could remember nothing 15 minutes after the substantial and materially important changes were made.

The message to loving family members is: let your aging and cognitively impaired parents use their past memories to advantage and as creatively and socially meaningfully as possible. If you are going to introduce changes to ingrained patterns of participation, be prepared for some chaos during the transitional stage, an occurrence that may be worthwhile, depending on what in the end you wish to achieve. And most importantly, get as much joy out of holidays with family and friends – a key to our Jewish traditions.

Dr. Michael Gordon is medical program director of palliative care at Baycrest and co-author with Bart Mindszenthy of Parenting Your Parents (Dundurn Press).