The disease we forget

“Every day my grandmother wraps her things in a sheet and ties it in a knot. She tells her relatives that she has not lived with us for a long time and is leaving right now to her village. Once I got angry and rolled a heavy carpet all by myself. I wanted to take him with me too,” says Tatyana, the granddaughter of an 80-year-old woman with memory loss syndromes and unmotivated aggression, which sometimes accompanies Alzheimer’s disease.

Today it is impossible to say with 100% probability which people are more susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease: with high or low intelligence, men or women, smokers or not. It is impossible to confidently answer the question of whether the disease is genetically transmitted. So far, one thing is known for certain – this disease is closely related to aging. It is almost impossible to get such a diagnosis before the age of 40.

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The development of the disease occurs according to one scenario with small individual characteristics. First, problems with memory begin, then coordination of movements is disturbed, gradually a person ceases to recognize loved ones, forgets how to handle well-known objects, and becomes dependent on outside help. Finally, speech, hearing, and any opportunity to serve oneself disappear. Some types of dementia are curable, but no cure for Alzheimer’s has yet been found. A special protein accumulates in the brain, forming plaques and glomeruli from damaged neurons, which leads to the destruction of nerve pathways and the disintegration of personality.

Alexander Sonin, psycholinguist, cognitive scientist:

“The main advantage of this video is not in how accurately it conveys the patient’s condition, but in the fact that, with the help of artistic means, the author makes the viewer empathize, sympathize. In my opinion, not everything in the proposed metaphor accurately reproduces the patient’s condition. For example, the perception of a person – even one suffering from cognitive impairment – bears little resemblance to fishing for random objects in the dark waters of the outside world. Man by nature is active, he lives by solving problems. In other words, it’s more natural for us not to wait for what object will accidentally fall on the hook, but to look for the important one for us right now.

I would also like to note one moment that was not displayed in the video. On the screen, we see how Alzheimer’s disease, causing the death of brain cells, gradually destroys the intellect – preventing the recognition of objects, violating the skills of using them, depriving the ability to understand speech. But for others, most often the main problem is changes in behavior: aggression, constant outwardly unmotivated anxiety, night wanderings.

Irina Roshchina, clinical psychologist, leading researcher at the NTsPZ RAMS:

“The video accurately reflects the symptoms of the disease. A tree is a tree of memory that crumbles in the hands of a person. The cubes are speech problems, and the flickering photos are fragmentary memories from childhood. The hero of the film takes the pipe from the wrong side, which means he forgets the purpose of the objects. The rope gets tangled, grips him more and more, and now he no longer knows who he really is. However, I am not sure that a person unfamiliar with Alzheimer’s disease understands everything correctly.

In addition, I did not like the way the hero is portrayed at all. It is unpleasant, as if without skin. The image created by the author causes rejection, not sympathy. People who suffer from this disease are not like that at all. They are someone’s close, they are loved, they are taken care of. Do relatives want to see their family member pictured like this? I can give an example of the documentary film “Genius Marian”*. It was filmed for several years by American director Benker White about his mother. A woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease lives in the province, surrounded by children and grandchildren. Her story unfolds on the screen. Of course, she also has the same symptoms, but with what tenderness, love, the film is made.

Scientists agree that the disease begins to develop several years before clinical symptoms. Often the early stage appears at 65–70 years of age. The mistake of the patient’s relatives at this stage is that they tend to attribute forgetfulness, confusion of thoughts and speech to normal old age. “The success of world medicine can be considered early diagnosis of the disease. With the help of computed tomography and neuropsychological research, a doctor can detect Alzheimer’s disease at the very beginning and slow down the pathological process in the brain by taking high-quality American or Russian drugs. This is very important for the patient and his family. At the first doubts, I urge you to contact specialists: let them please you better that you are healthy than you will come too late, ”says Irina Roshchina.

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Psychologist Alexander Sonin warns: “The treatment of Alzheimer’s disease is a rather specific area of ​​neurology, and not always a doctor in a district clinic has the necessary knowledge to make a diagnosis and identify the causes of the problems that have arisen. Therefore, it is more efficient to look for a specialized medical institution. In large cities, these are the so-called memory rooms.

The big city forces us to move faster every day, to be multitasking, efficient, to play several social roles at the same time. But even among the accumulated cases, you need to remain attentive to your loved ones, do not miss the moment to talk with them. Smile at your parents, grandparents, ask them a couple of simple questions: how was the day, did the neighbor come by – by the way, what is her name? Play along as if you forgot the name of some object and ask for a hint. Just a few minutes of warm communication a day can extend the life of loved ones.

Liza Jenova’s book “Forever Alice”, a New York Times bestseller, is about the daily battle with a serious illness of the main character, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, the battle for memories, memory and the ability to be yourself (Eksmo, 2012).