`` Still Alice ' By Lisa Genova

1) This video was an educational and eye-opening documentary about the infamous Alzheimer’s Disease and its effects on the victim and their family. The film follows several different families, each directly affected by the disease, and how they cope with the loss of their, or a loved one’s, memories and mind. One such family, the Noonans, had a rare form of the disease, where its destruction of the mind began much earlier in life, around age fifty. Three of the Noonan siblings out of ten caught Alzheimer’s and none of the other seven knew whether they had the gene for it or not, passed on by their mother, who also died of this. Watching this unfold in the movie “The Forgetting” was rather eye-opening,

‘A retired teacher, Betty (65 years old), was diagnosed with Dementia. She lived at home with her husband Arthur (70 years old) who had been caring for her for several years. When she was diagnosed, No information was given to the couple. They had no relatives that they could rely on around them for support.

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.

Just Love me: My life turned upside down by Alzheimer’s (Lee, 2003), has allowed Lee (2003) to put on paper what an individual going though Alzheimer’s disease thinks and feels. This book has been written in order to better inform individuals that have Alzheimer’s, as well as the non-suffers who have been touched by Alzheimer’s in friends and family. It follows Lee (2003) though her struggles with early onset Alzheimer’s, describing her experiences before being diagnosed as well as how her disease progresses. It also examined the difficulties in diagnosing a disease that is not yet well understood. Lee (2003) talks about her everyday struggles as the disease worsens and she begins to lose her occupations and the person she use to be.

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.

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.

In the book, Still Alice, Alice Howland is happily married to a successful husband with three grown children with a house on the Cape. Alice is a Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices forgetfulness creeping into her life. As her memory begins to fail and confusion starts to darken her thinking, Alice receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle even as her sense of self is being stripped away, and she tries to live in the moment, Still Alice captures what it is like literally to lose your mind (Genova, 2007).

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

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

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

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.

As baby boomers age and the demographic of the nation changes, it is with increasing frequency that the terms dementia, Alzheimer’s, and chronic cognitive decline are included in common vocabulary. Television viewers are inundated with advertisements for Alzheimer’s medications. Popular sitcoms include episodes about dealing with the stresses that can occur in a family dealing with cognitive decline issues. Entire movies, such as Still Alice, speak to these issues from the perspective of the patient. Chronic cognitive decline has been brought to the forefront of the American culture not only in homes across the country but in the healthcare system where the challenges of recognizing, treating, and managing these conditions while providing quality of care can be challenging.

Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative disease that causes problems with memory, thinking, and behavior. “Anosognosia effects 81% of those with Alzheimer’s disease” (Stevenson 1) and it may worsen as Alzheimer’s progresses. The first symptom of Alzheimers’s is often difficulty remembering new information. Although, as it progresses the symptoms become more severe and could lead to confusion, disorientation, changes in mood, and suspicions of family, friends and caregivers. “I have found that women with Alzheimer’s disease, especially those who have outlived their husbands, tend to misidentify a daughter” (Feinberg 34). Emma, an eighty year old patient of Feinberg’s, claims to have two daughters named Betty. One of them being the “real Betty” and the other being the “assistant” Betty. Emma’s Alzheimer’s has progressed to the point where she is excessively confused and can’t comprehend she has a disease. She therefore has anosognosia. Not all cases of Alzheimer’s are as bizarre as Emma’s situation, but that doesn’t mean it’s not equally as

“Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a slowly progressive disease of the brain that is characterized by impairment of memory and eventually by disturbances in reasoning, planning, language, and perception.” (Howard Crystal) In Health 1000 we were asked to read the book Still Alice. I have never dealt with or have done any study on Alzheimer’s disease before reading this book. After finishing this book it has really opened my eyes to how bad of a disease and how it cripples the mind. I never imagined the effect of this disease on a patient and the patient family. This book is about a upper middle aged lady named Alice who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and how she and her family learn how to deal with disease. One of the things this book

As the film unfolded, Alice became open with her family regarding her recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, fears and struggles. John who was physician, Anna who was a lawyer, Tom who was a medical student and Lydia an aspiring