The month of November is Alzheimer`s disease awareness month and it is represented by a purple ribbon. This disease is the sixth leading death in the United States and it affects people all around the world. Tania Lombrozo states that, “The disease seem[s] to threaten the person's
"true" or original self. As memory declined, so [does] the individual's identity” ("Alzheimer's
Challenges Notions of Memory and Identity"). While the chances of obtaining this terrible disease are not impossible, the film Still Alice directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash
Westmoreland depicts, Alice Howland, a well renowned professor at Columbia University, and her battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Many people accept that the title Still Alice refers to her
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She states to her husband, “Dammit! Why won’t you take me seriously?! I know what I’m feeling. I know what
[my brain is] feeling. And it feels like my brain is fucking dying and everything I’ve worked for in my entire life is going. It’s all going” (Still Alice). In the scene, Alice is attempting to express to John what she is facing, but she is becoming frustrated with her husband, who Alice imagines is just brushing off the situation. At the same time, the audience witnesses through the eyes of
John the care and concern he has and the first sign of reckoning of the disease. The line stated by
Alice to John awakens the audience to the harsh reality of the lack of support the people with
Alzheimer’s face and creates sympathy and understanding through a patient`s perspective. The audience concludes that this conversation is the last one that had meaning to Alice and John in their routine of talking to each other. From then on, there is a breakdown in communication and their conversations only occur to carry on life. Even though the disease brings many hardships in
Alice`s life, it ultimately makes Alice grasp that life is what one makes
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Andreas Heyland concludes that, “Metamorphosis is a life- history transition that involves radical changes in habitat, morphology, and physiology” (658).
One specific process of metamorphosis is histolysis and this is a transformation process where the caterpillar digests itself from the inside out to become a butterfly, almost unrecognizable from its original form. Similarly, Alice`s undergoes a transformation that destroys her from the inside out and forces her to become an altered person that is far from her original self. The disease forced many negative changes in Alice`s life, however, the disease likewise evolved her into becoming the best mother and wife that her family is longing to have. Once a prosperous professor that obtained her identity in her work and speech, Alice is diagnosed with a disease that forces her to slow down and realize that the most important things in life are not what she has valued all along. Her values and priorities rather come from her family and those who love and support her through the good and bad. She learns that her disease is truly a blessing in disguise and lives by the phrase “Carpe Diem” or “seize the day”
Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice, a heartbreaking book about a 50-year-old woman's sudden diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is a member of the Dementia Advocacy, Support Network International and Dementia USA and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association. Genova's work with Alzheimer's patients has given her an understanding of the disorder and its affect not only on the patient, but on their friends and family as well (Simon and Schuster, n.d.).
Her essay is arranged in such a way that her audience can understand her life - the positives and the negatives. She allows her audience to see both sides of her life, both the harsh realities that she must suffer as well as her average day-to-day life. According to Nancy, multiple sclerosis “...has opened and enriched my life enormously. This sense that my fragility and need must be mirrored in others, that in search for and shaping a stable core in a life wrenched by change and loss, change and loss, I must recognize the same process, under individual conditions, in the lives around me. I do not deprecate such knowledge” (Mairs, 37). Mairs big claim is that she has accepted herself and her condition for what is it, yet she refuses to allow her condition to define her. Through her particular diction, tone, satire, and rhetorical elements, Mairs paints a picture of her life and shows how being a cripple has not prevent her from living her life. She is not embarrassed nor ashamed of what she is, and accepts her condition by making the most of it and wearing the title with
This theory views the family as a system containing interrelated and interacting parts. Whether something is affecting a family member positively or negatively, all family members are affected by these factors (Mitrani,Feaster, McCabe, Czaja, Szapocznik, 2004). In this case, the Howland family must cope with the vast changes in the cognitive function of their mother Alice. Throughout the film, we see how the impact of Alzheimer’s disease affects the family as a whole. Lydia who lives in California must move back home so that she can take care of her mother while her father is away at his new job. This is an example of how Alice’s Alzheimer’s diagnoses does not only affect her, but also affects Lydia’s life. Another example of how the disease affects the family system is when John and Alice are about to go for a run; Alice advises John that first she must use the bathroom before they part. Sadly Alice does not remember where the bathroom is in the house and she urinates in her
...piring person for everyone especially regarding her eating disorder. As for her bipolar disorder she received a lot of different medication from lithium to (other drugs). Her treatment also included a lot of group therapy and support from her family and husbands.
progresses her actions to things happening around brought her to the end of her life. Other
...f the bad that is going on in her real life, so she would have a happy place to live. With the collapse of her happy place her defense was gone and she had no protection from her insanity anymore. This caused all of her blocked out thoughts to swarm her mind and turn her completely insane. When the doctor found her, he tried to go in and help her. When the doctor finally got in he fainted because he had made so many positive changes with her and was utterly distressed when he found out that it was all for naught. This woman had made a safety net within her mind so that she would not have to deal with the reality of being in an insane asylum, but in the end everything failed and it seems that what she had been protecting herself from finally conquered her. She was then forced to succumb to her breakdown and realize that she was in the insane asylum for the long run.
child who was not expected to live, take her first steps after weeks of therapy. The journey to reach my
In this day and age, it seems as though almost everyone has experience a loved one taken away form a very serious disease known as Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is unbelievably devastating for everyone affected by it. This disease is causing major economical problems such as less occupancy in the nursing homes, and hospitals due to the rising population of elderly men and women being diagnosed with it everyday. Because there is not yet a cure for this disease and the percent of the population being diagnosed keeps rapidly rising, more time and money needs to go towards Alzheimer’s research.
that she is also aware of what her condition may lead to. But, if it
Who is Alice Walker? Her full name is Alice Malsenior Walker. She was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the eight and youngest child of Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Willie Lee Walker. Her parents were poor sharecroppers. In the summer of 1952 Alice Walker is blinded in her right eye due to a BB gun pellet while she was playing “cowboys and indian” with her brother. When graduating high school in 1961, she was her school’s valedictorian and was the prom queen that year. She went to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia on scholarship. While in Spelman as a freshman, Alice Walker participated in the civil rights demonstrations. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. invited her to the Youth World Peace Festival in Helsinki, Finland. After attending the conference she started to love traveling around meeting many people and cultures of the world. She traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She was also there to hear Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. She returned to Spelman College for her junior year. She found out that she has received a scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Walker was planning to stay at Spelman, but after her teacher has encouraged her to attend Sarah Lawrence she decide to accept the challenge. In Sarah Lawrence, Walker enjoyed the teaching of poetry by Muriel Ruykeyser and writer Jane Cooper who nurtured her interest and talent in writing.
...nal connection Alzheimer’s has to my life cannot see thorough fulfillment through research and garnering knowledge about the topic. I must follow in the steps of my grandmother and contribute to the cause to help those currently affected by the impairment but also look towards a future where a definitive treatment can slay the beast that is Alzheimer’s. Ways I can contribute to the cause include participating in Alzheimer’s Walks such as the one in Binghamton and continue my family’s dedication towards raising money for the Alzheimer’s association. In addition, knowing about the risk factors and causes gives me a better understanding of my personal risk for attaining the disease. However, this new knowledge does not frighten me or worry me about if my future will contain this diagnosis, but enables me to be prepared and ready to conquer any tribulation I encounter.
Everyday a new disease or treatment is being discovered. There are always many questions left unanswered and many answers that are still trying to be figured out. Doctors, along with medical treatment centers and every day people are trying to figure out what Alzheimer’s disease really is or what it is about. Alzheimer’s disease has many common symptoms and effects in both men and women. The common, but confused name for Alzheimer’s disease is Dementia. People commonly confuse these two names because of the effects or symptoms that relate back to the name. Not many people know exactly what Alzheimer’s disease is or what causes it. But there are significant warning signs that lead people to conclude that is it a sad uncontrollable disease.
Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944. She grew up in Eatonton as the youngest child out of eight. Her parents, Minnie Grant and Willie Walker, were poor sharecroppers. Alice was raised with in a family of poverty and a life of violent racism. Her environment left a permanent impression on her writing (“Alice Walker”). When she was eight, Alice and her brother were playing a game of “Cowboys and Indians” when she was blinded in her right eye. This incident occurred by a BB gun pallet. She was teased by her classmates and misunderstood by her family and became shy. She isolated herself from her classmates, and she explains, “ I no longer felt like the little girl I was. I felt old, and because I felt I was unpleasant to look at, filled with shame.” She had the amazing opportunity to have the cataract removed when she was fourteen. She had it removed, yet her sight in her right eye never returned.
cerebral palsy. Though she is not in pain, she was born, and she is loved. No matter if she wasn’t
Her eventual attentiveness could be borne from her polite nature and want of companionship, as well as from the persona of the Red Queen. The Queen represents a governess or teacher-type and thus Alice learns to listen, even when she does not fully want to. Whenever Alice is afraid she has offended someone, she tries her best to remedy the situation. “Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen’s tone that she was a little offended: and they walked on in silence till they got to the top of the hill” (Caroll). Alice gives of a persona of being well-trained, yet still childish and demanding. However, as she moves further through Wonderland she begins to gain more control of her childish impulses, such as being angry with the world for ‘making things difficult’ for her when she could not find her way through a maze. In this way, Alice is a dynamic character. She matures throughout the story as she finds out more about