“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
Alice believes that Lydia should be going to college and getting an education instead of running around L.A. taking acting classes. Every time they talked or visited each other it always ended up in some heated argument. Of the three children Lydia and Alice relationship improved after finding out about everything. Lydia even came home for a summer to help out with her mother. During that summer Lydia and Alice becomes closer and they are able to hold conversations that didn’t end up in a fight. Alice evens picks up reading plays and scripts. So she finds some common ground with her daughter that leads to them become closer and helping in settling somewhat the lifelong dispute of acting and college. Alice even begins to want to see Lydia act in a play but is unable to attend one for a while due to that fact that she can’s travel alone and John was really busy. One day during the summer Alice decides to go snooping around in Lydias room and comes across her personal dairy. So Alice being the curious mother she of course reads the dairy. In the diary it describes a personal scene with Lydia and Malcolm who is Lydia boyfriend back in L.A. In conversation at some later day Alice give up that she read Lydia dairy, which in turns makes Lydia furious. In her angry she leaves Alice and disappears for a few days. Finally towards the end of the summer Alice is able to attend a play of Lydia. This is what Lydia always wanted of Alice, but after the play Alice forgets