Brittany Wobig
Prof. Burke
Developmental Psychology
Losing My Mind Many of us use the expression ‘I’m losing my mind’ pretty regularly in life, but not many of us actually mean that we are in fact losing our minds. The title for this non-fiction novel is very straight forward and to the point; Losing My Mind. The book was published in the year 2002 by The Free Press publishing company of New York, New York and totals 210 pages written by Thomas DeBaggio. DeBaggio recants his life before and after his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, including multiple perspective and styles of writing to help us comprehend his past and a little of the medical side of the disease. Losing My Mind opens up by placing us smack in the middle of DeBaggio’s herb farming business located in Virginia. Living there with him are his wife, Joyce, and son Francesco, who help in taking care of the greenhouse and farming. DeBaggio had never been one to spend a lot of time in doctor offices, took care with his diet and never put much thought into getting old and sick. Due to the fact that his father was taken by heart disease and his mother by cancer, DeBaggio made a conscience effort to take care of his self. During the time before his diagnosis, Thomas had noticed some difficulty in remembering names of old friends, plants and herbs that he had been working with for years, mostly brushing it off to old age and memory. During a rare doctor visit, he made the decision to mention it to his physician, was given a referral and that is what gets the ball rolling downhill. Several Neurological evaluations, psychological evaluations and blood tests later, Thomas DeBaggio was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at 58. Losing My Mind takes you inside DeBaggio’s world as he documents his daily experiences and mental decline while also trying to maintain an outsider’s perspective to clearly convey what he is going through. What DeBaggio wanted to accomplish was to chart the ins and outs of living with Alzheimer’s and how it affects the individual and everyone around them in different ways, he wanted people to learn about this disease from his experiences. To understand Alzheimer’s is almost not an accomplishable task, but we can start with defining what Alzheimer’s exactly is. Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior. Symptoms usually develop slowly and get worse over time, eventually becoming severe enough that they interfere with daily tasks and activities. Some cases develop later in life and some earlier in life, in our case Thomas was diagnosed in his 50’s which classifies him as early onset. Thomas was in the beginning stages of early onset when he started noticing a decline in his abilities to recall things such as his plant and herb names that he had been working with forever, and names of friends who he