Still disease is increasing age. the 6th leading

StillAlice is a novel about a Harvard psychology professor, named Alice Howland, who began to experience early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease after her 50thbirthday. The novel focuses on the progress of the disease and how it began toaffect her everyday life. It began when she had difficulties rememberinginformation for a presentation she was presenting. Another time she was joggingin her neighborhood and was not able to find her way back home.

She also had ahard time remembering course material that she was suppose to teach at theUniversity that she had just prepared right before class. Things progressivelygot more and more difficult for Alice making her believe it was a symptom ofmenopause. Eventually, Alice began to feel that the loss of her memory wastaking control of her life. Alice was going through a very hardtime accepting the fact that she might be experiencing a form of memory loss. At first, she chose not to tell her husband about what was going on and wantedto handle it on her own. Eventually, she shared what was happening with herhusband and they both agreed that she should see a neurologist for genetictesting. The testing showed that she was indeed experiencing early stages ofAlzheimer’s disease.

It was found that she had a genetic link to the diseaseand her children have a chance of forming the disease when they were older. Alzheimer’s disease is the mostcommon type of dementia (“ Alzheimer’s Disease,” n. d.). 70% of dementia casesare Alzheimer’s disease. Adults with this disease have a hard time finishingdaily routines, solving problems, and orienting to time and place (Smallfield, 2017). As seen in Still Alice, symptoms usually advance slowly.

The risk factor for this disease is increasingage. The 6th leading cause of death in the United States isAlzheimer’s disease (“ Alzheimer’s Disease,” n. d.

). Those with Alzheimer’sdisease have a loss of brain cells and neurons. No cure has been found and itis completely irreversible (Jenson & Padilla, 2017). Researchers have founddifferent ways to treat it, some in which consists of medications and non medications. The cause of this disease is unknown but it is identified to have a genetic tieand can be found with genetic testing.

Many people believe Alzheimer’s diseaseis a gradual death of the mind. There are three stages of Alzheimer’sdisease. These stages include early, moderate, and advanced. In the early stage, the ability to learn new information is affected. Vocabulary decreases and theperson has hard time finding words to use like what happened to Alice in thepresentation. The fluency of conversations is affected. This stage is the stageAlice was experiencing in the novel at first.

Her vocabulary was decreased andshe had a hard time finding a choice of words to use. Those in the early stageare normally still independent. The second stage of Alzheimer’sdisease is moderate. Everyday activities become much harder to complete. Vocabulary recall becomes more difficult. The ability to read and write arelost. This is also the stage where Alice forgot who her daughter, Lydia, was.

In this stage, they may have problems recognizing the people they were closestwith. They are also known to become aggressive. The final stage in Alzheimer’sdisease is the advanced stage. In this stage, the person is completelydependent. Words are minimal and sentences are rarely formed.

The person stillappears to be aggressive but more exhausted. Alzheimer’s disease is usually notthe actual cause of death but instead an infection the person develops. One of the early common symptoms ofAlzheimer’s disease is the trouble of learning new information. This happensbecause the part of the brain that affects learning is the first to be affectedin the disease. This is most likely why short term memory loss begins. Cognitiveimpairment is one of the main symptoms Alice was experiencing. “ Cognitivedecline is one of the major neuropsychiatric features in Alzheimer’s disease (Tang et al.

, 2017).” Disorientation is anothercommon symptom. This ties into the novel where Alice lost her sense ofdirection after going jogging in a route she had been very familiar with. Semanticmemory is also affected. Semantic memory is the general knowledge we learn throughoutlife.  A common psychological symptom forAlzheimer’s disease is depression. In the novel, Alice was depressed when shefound out her children will have a chance of having Alzheimer’s as well.

The diagnosis is based on the genesand family history of the person. It can also be diagnosed based on theneuropsychological features seen in the brain. This can be seen through an MRI. In an MRI, they can usually see the progression of the disease and how thefeatures of the brain change. In this assignment, I learned manyof the symptoms those with Alzheimer’s disease experience.

Alice had many ofthe typical symptoms that people experience. I believe learning about thisdisease is very important as a Speech-Language Pathologist. If I work the elderpopulation, I can possibly have clients that suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.