The Forgetting: Understanding Alzheimer’s: A Biography of a Disease - Hardcover

Shenk, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002571749 ISBN 13: 9780002571746

Verlag: HarperCollins, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

With a Foreword by ADAM PHILLIPS – A haunting literary and scientific examination of Alzheimer’s disease and the race to find a cure. Similar in tone to the AIDS classic And The Band Plays On.

‘A truly remarkable book – the definitive work on Alzheimer's, it seems to me, both in social and medical terms. The Forgetting is incisive, humane, never ponderous, full of dry humor, brilliantly written with quiet, unpretentious authority. As a layman with personal experience of 'caring' for an Alzheimer's sufferer I am well aware of the stages of the disease and its prognosis and ending. Shenk is excellent on all these, and in his reflections on memory and the individual, and the individual's response to the progress of the disease. I can't imagine a book on Alzheimer's being better researched and understood, or presented with greater sympathy.’ John Bayley

In 1906 Alois Alzheimer dissected and examined the cerebral cortex of Auguste D’s brain and became the first scientist in medical history to link a specific brain pathology to behavioural changes. The disease named after him, turns otherwise active and healthy people into living ghosts. It is a rare condition for those in their 40s and 50s but 10% of the 65+ population suffers from it and 50% of the 85+. It is longevity’s revenge and as the baby boom generation drifts into its elderly years the number of Alzheimer’s victims is expected to quadruple, making it the fastest-growing disease in developed countries.

As Adam Phillips writes in his forword ‘'This remarkable book will radically change our notions of looking after people and our assumptions about independence. Out of fear of mortality we have idealised health and youth and competence. The Forgetting reminds us among many other things that there is more to life than that.”

Shenk’s history of Alzheimer’s is both poignant and scientific, grounded by the fundamental belief that memory forms the basis of our selves, our souls, and the meaning in our lives.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Shenk is the author of Data Smog and a book of essays entitled The End of Patience. He has written for many American newspapers and journals. Shenk was a 1995-1996 Freedom Forum Fellow and a 1998 US-Japan Fellow. He lives in Brooklyn.

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'I have lost my mental faculties but am perfectly well.'
EMERSON

When, in 1906. Alois Alzheimer dissected and examined the cerebral cortex of Augute D's brain, he became the first scientist in medical history to link a specific brain pathology to behavioural changes. But almost a century later treatment is still in its infancy. 'Alzheimer's is like an insidious fog,' writes John Bayley, 'barely noticeable until everything around has disappeared, after that it is no longer possible to believe that a world outside the fog exists.'

Yet Alzheimer's has been a part of the human experience for millennia. Jonathan Swift once dramatically and prophetically pointed to a diseased elm and declared, 'I shall be like that tree, I shall die first at the top.' And, as our life spans continue to expand, the illness he so dreaded has now reached epidemic proportions. Today Alzheimer's afflicts one in twenty over the age of sixty-five. It affects all groups in society, irrespective of social class, gender, ethnic group or geographical location. There are currently around twelve million sufferers worldwide, but this number is expected to quadruple, making it the fastest growing disease in the developed world.

The forgetting is the first book to evoke and explain this difficult, frightening disease. Grounded by the fundamental belief that memory forms the basis of our selves, our souls and the meaning in our lives, this unique history of Alzheimer's manages to be at once literary and scientific, poignant and yet full of hope. It will revolutionise all perceptions of the disease.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HarperCollins
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0002571749
• ISBN 13: 9780002571746
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar