Literature and movies are more sensitive to Alzheimer's disease now



[ad_1]

In a scene from the novelAlice again, Dr. Alice Howland, a 50-year-old Harvard professor with Alzheimer's disease, poses a poignant question: what is stopping us from accepting and helping patients with Alzheimer's disease? Alzheimer? "I encourage you to take responsibility, not limit yourself. Work with us. Help us cope with our loss of memory, language and cognition. She reminds us that people with Alzheimer's disease are more apt than their functional disabilities and their forgetfulness. Always aliceLisa Genova, a neuroscientist, has changed a lot the way Alzheimer's is explained and represented.

A progressive neurodegenerative disease that thwarts our reasoning, memory, and language abilities, Alzheimer's disease remains a headache a few decades after it was discovered in 1906 by Alois Alzheimer as "an unusual disease of the cerebral cortex." Although PET scans and various memory tests and cognitive tests may provide some clarity, the disease is still poorly understood. Yet, some 46 million people in the world are currently living with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. The number is expected to triple by 2050 as the population ages.

You are lost?

Without sufficient awareness, Alzheimer's disease is often interpreted as madness. If people with Alzheimer's disease are not directly portrayed as undead in movies and popular literature, they are often portrayed as crazy, a comic material. Works such as Death in slow motion: Memory of a girl, her mother and the beast called Alzheimer by Eleanor Cooney, Robert T. Woods Alzheimer's Disease: Facing a Living Death or Thomas DeBaggio Losing my mind: An intimate look at life with Alzheimer's disease deliberately or inadvertently perpetuated false ideas about Alzheimer's disease. Movies like George Romero's Night of the living dead and Francis Coppola Dementia 13, who popularized zombies, were then used as a practical guide to Alzheimer's disease. The common phrases associated with the condition – "the silent plague," "thief of spirit," "a brain in the jar," "myself lost," "dead socially" – are a commentary on how the disease is still being seen today.

Fortunately, this is changing somewhat thanks to cultural activism, personality movements and research progress. The American Psychological Association has taken a commendable step when dementia has been renamed as a major neurocognitive disorder in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – which has done much to reduce the general panic around the disease. Alzheimer's and dementia.

Writers and artists also take a look at the dark spaces of Alzheimer's like never before. While classics such as John Bayley's memoirs, Elegy for Iris helped to create empathy and sensitivity around Alzheimer's disease. The 2013 graphic narrative by Dana Walrath,Aliceheimer: Alzheimer's Through the Looking Glass, reconfigure Alzheimer's disease as a state of being magical and healing. The neurologist Gayatri Devi The specter of hope Redefines Alzheimer's disease as another spectrum disorder such as autism. Documentaries such as Alive Inside: a history of music and memory or The indomitable spirit bring realism and relief. Judith Fox I always do it: love and live with Alzheimer's disease Intimate photographs with poetic writing to give an encouraging glimpse of the life of her surgeon husband suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Hannah Peel uses music to revive her demented grandmother in her album "Awake But Always Dreaming". Comics also go through ignorance about Alzheimer's disease and humanize it – Paco Roca Wrinkles, Sarah Leavitt Tangles, Sharon Rosenzweig The mommy's flock: Renegade Hens in Highland Park, Stu Campbell These memories do not last, an interactive webcomic, brings home the realities of Alzheimer's disease.

Purple badges

While Indian movies such as Thanmathra (Malayalam),Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara, Black and May (Hindi), Astu (Marathi), O Kadhal Kanmani (Tamil) treat conditions related to dementia with sensitivity, they also tend to give medically inaccurate information. The books on Alzheimer's disease are also rare: D.P. Sabharwal Fight against Alzheimer's disease with courage, from his experience with his wife, with Alzheimer's disease, Ranabir Samaddar.Krishna: living with Alzheimer's disease, or S.P. Bhattacharjya In the lineage of Alzheimer's disease: the mission continues are a handful that deal with the subject.

Celebrated as World Alzheimer's Month, the month of September is a reminder that Alzheimer's patients are more than just a cluster of amyloid plaques. Encouragingly, there are now purple badges for spreading sensitivity, purple marathons, dementia marches, promising gardens, souvenir cafes and dementia-friendly cities. The Restaurant of Order Mistakes in Tokyo only employs people with dementia; the "House of Memories" of the Den Gamle By Danish Museum recreates the 1950s for patients.

In the absence of a permanent cure, let's look at Stephen Hawking's words: "Whatever the bad life, there is always something to do and succeed. When there is life there is hope. "

The authors are specialized in health humanities and are affiliated with the National Institute of Technology Trichy.

[ad_2]
Source link