Everyone Forgets In Still Alice

Suspecting that something is seriously wrong, and without the knowledge of her husband, John, Alice goes to see her doctor who refers her to a neurologist. After testing, Alice receives the stunning diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer 's. It is both numbing and terrifying for her. She is 50 years old. Alice struggles to tell John, who is a cancer cell biologist, because telling him will make it all "real". When she does, his reaction is almost cerebral and clinical. At first reluctant to believe her, John offers Alice no comfort. Instead he tells her he needs to find out more about Alzheimer 's.

This screenplay follows the protagonist Alice Howland, who is a professor of linguistics at Columbia University. Alice Howland is later diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, which turns her world completely upside down; especially given her career and ambitious nature. She becomes unable to perform normal everyday activities, and struggles with the loss of her independence. Alice’s husband, John, who is a physician, attempts to act as a guide for her through this time, but it ultimately puts a strain on their relationship. John’s job offer to move to Boston does not help matters either, and it quickly becomes the last straw for the two of them. He soon moves to New York to take the job after Alice’s memory starts to decay at a faster rate. John and Alice have 3 children, Lydia, Anna, and Tom as well as a son-in-law, Charlie. They are introduced at the beginning of the screenplay, as they all gather to celebrate Alice’s 50th birthday at a restaurant. This is also the time in which the audience notices her decline in normal conversation as she is unable to follow smoothly. Alice could be considered the catalytic hero of this screenplay, and the disease being the antagonist. Alice wants to hold on to as much of her memory that she can, and slow the regression by writing down everything. By Act 3, Alice loses her ability to do activities that she had been doing for many years; such as going out for her morning run without getting lost, remembering words, phrases, and

Living with an insidious cognitive declining illness, individuals diagnosed with early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease often fear losing their sense of self (Borrello et al. 2495). This theme is carried out in the film through the character of Alice, a 50 year old linguistics professor at Columbia University. The inevitable decline in memory, communication, and eventually independence strike those with the disease (Borrello et al. 2494), which will quickly affect not only themselves, but also relationships with others. In this essay, I will discuss the level of accuracy in the film, Still Alice, directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, by analyzing its display of knowledge on neurological and psychological

Alice’s story about her’s and her family’s struggle reaches to me because the disease takes away someone you love slowly. This book shows Alice losing parts of herself gradually until she is unrecognizable. However, Alice is still a person and should still be treated as one. The message this book sends across to its audience that, although taken by Alzheimer’s, Alice has emotions too and that part is not taken away from her.

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.).

Imagine a wife and husband being married for 44 years and having one of them not remember who the other is, or their past life together. The film Away From Her (Egoyan, et al., 2006) shows viewers how the disease can greatly impact your life, and how quickly it can form. The film was based off of a short story “The Bear Came over the Mountain” by Alice Munro (Munro, 2013). In both works, the author and the director portray a significant struggle between a husband and wife dealing with Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s is a disorder that occurs when an individual’s brain cells begin to die gradually, over an unknown period of time. Those suffering from Alzheimer’s experience a multitude of symptoms such as not being able to identify family, friends, and acquaintances, having the incapacity to grasp new knowledge, and undergoing states of confusion.

Still Alice (Genova, 2009) is a captivating debut novel about a 50-year-old woman’s sudden decline into early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The book is written by first time author Lisa Genova, who holds a PH.D in neuroscience from Harvard University. She’s also an online columnist for the national Alzheimer’s association. Her other books include Left Neglected and Love Anthony. She lives with her husband and two children in Cape Cod.

Alzheimer's disease is a familiar sight to me. I had a sad experience during my work as a nurse in my country Colombia and Spain with Alzheimer disease patients. Day by day I came to know each patient’s story because every day they were living the moment without remember the last minute. This is also what happened to Lisa Genova’s novel Still Alice. The protagonists is a 50 year old woman, a very well organized, efficient, highly-educated, and smart Harvard professor, wife of a successful man, and the mother of three grown children, who has diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. People have learned about the progression of Alice’s disease through her reactions, so feeling what she feels- a

Alzheimer's, the word strikes fear in some and an off-handed glance in others. The fact still remains that Alzheimer’s is an extremely shattering disease that removes the mind fraction by fraction over a period of time, this could even take decades. It begins as small memory lapses, slowly progressing to memory breaches but then progressively eroding your life to the point where around-the-clock care is the only option. With severe Alzheimer's, as we almost hear daily that patients have wandered off and gotten lost. In my own life, my grandfather was not even able to recognize his family members. Alzheimer's was a little known disease before 1960, but today it threatens to completely derail the health system in the United States.

Still Alice is a captivating novel about a woman’s sudden decline into early onset Alzheimer’s disease, and how Alice Howland’s quality of life is altered following the diagnosis of this disease (Genova, 2003). The foundation of quality of life lies on freedom and access to basic resources for living (lecture 7 notes). One’s quality of life increases when one has a positive outlook on life, works on achieving goals and feels supported by their community and loved ones. To say such disease limits or decreases one’s quality of life or affects their aging progress is an understatement.

“I want to tell you how much I miss my mother. Bits of her are still there. I miss her most when I sit across from her” was said by Candy Crawley. This quote is displaying how Alzheimer's disease can affect an individual and that person’s family and friends. Everyone in the world desires to keep the ones closest to that individual safe. Many people do not understand how traumatizing Alzheimer's disease is or can be. No one knows for sure what causes the disease. It could have a huge, dramatic alternation on any person’s life in an instant. It can be traumatizing because Alzheimer’s has many side effects, physical or emotional, to the individual. There are several reasons to why people in the world should know more about Alzheimer's disease,

Alzheimer’s disease affects the world greatly, and the numbers of victims are growing. Alzheimer’s disease affects everyone affiliated with the sufferer. Alzheimer’s disease devastates the brain and its ability to function. The issue is sensitive, complicated, and is negatively impacting the world. Alzheimer’s disease may not always be fatal, but “Alzheimer’s disease has no survivors. It destroys brain cells and causes memory changes, erratic behaviors and loss of body functions. It slowly and painfully takes away a person’s identity, ability to connect with others, think, eat, talk, walk, and find his or her way home” (“What is Alzheimer’s”). This tragic disease impacts over five million people in the United States. Alzheimer’s disease touches all, and it is essential to understand the basics of Alzheimer’s.

Alice faced severe challenges throughout the movie. However, she was a college professor, who was well-known and very intelligent. Alice had a wonderful husband with 3 beautiful children, 2 girls and one son. Alice family was the most important thing to her as a wife and mother. Alice was always on the go as a professor and wife. Alice loss her mother and sister in a car wreck a year ago on January 19th and her father passed away due to being an alcoholic. In the beginning of the movie Alice well aware of her surrounds and competent to her priorities. Alice was a peaceful, sweet, and humble young lady, who had a lot of respect for individuals. As time went by, Alice became fearful of the episodes she were experiencing. However, she felt it had to do with menopause. With that being said, she never took it seriously of the traumatic episodes that she came in contact with on a daily basis. Thoroughly, Alice begin to realize as time went by that her episodes begin to get worse and she start experiencing hallucinations. Alice experienced many different events of losing memory. Alice enjoyed exercising every morning. One particular morning, Alice went out to do her daily exercise, while do so Alice breath got heavier and heavier to obtain. Alice stop to caught her breath, in the process of trying to caught her breath, everything around her was spinning. Alice forgot where she was at that moment and had to give herself time to come back to reality. She became fearful and realized

     It is inevitable that eventually each of us will grow old and begin to face more and more health problems as our age rises. Elderly people are challenged by many illnesses and diseases that unfortunately, are incurable. One disease that becomes more common as people age is Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s a common cause and a form of dementia and can severely damage a patient’s cognitive functions and can ultimately cause death. Living with Alzheimer’s disease can be saddening for both the sufferer and the family. Family and friends will find it very hard to cope when a loved one begins slipping away and losing memory of who they are.