Rambling comes with age

Those who do live to enjoy long lives should be aware that seniority does not come without its problems.

Creaking bones are par for the course as the years pass by and so, too, is a degree of forgetfulness. Now researchers bring further grim news about the passage of time.

Tests have found that older people are not so adept as the young at keeping conversations on track.

Those who do have a tendency to ramble might take comfort from the fact that they are likely to be more knowledgeable than those who keep to the subject. Those with elderly relatives may not be entirely surprised. Who among us, after all, has not embarked on a wander into the unknown as a great aunt or grandfather begins to proclaim about the state of the world? Now that scientists have identified this phenomenon, it’s not entirely clear what can be done to address it.

There is no treatment, so far as we are aware, that might compel someone to keep to the subject.

Indeed, some might consider that, with age comes the right to bang on about whatever subject one chooses, no matter how random it might seem.