Still Alice: Modern Day View Of Alzheimer's Disease

The movie I watched for assignment 1 was Still Alice. This movie represents a modern day view of Alzheimer’s Disease and the rapid deterioration and destruction that this disease can have one’s life and family. The main character Alice was a professor of linguistics at Columbia, at the age of mid to late forties, she started to notice that she was losing her train of thought and her memories. She was finally diagnosed with the deadly early onset Alzheimer’s that was passed through her family genes. Within nine months of the diagnoses she lost the ability to think, to remember important dates and people, and became a hollow shell of herself. Overall, I enjoyed this movie, it was heartbreaking however, the story line does incorporate real facts about what happens to one’s self and family when one is diagnosed with this disease. Still Alice truly captured “the art of losing” in a sense that many in the United States have witness or are aware of.

In the movie Alice had a hard remembering where objects and certain rooms are located in her built environment interior and exterior. There were a couple of scenes that indicated the true depth of the problem she had with her environment. The first major scene happen early onset in the film, Alice was running her daily route around Columbia University when suddenly she forgot where
she was. She was unable to remember any buildings that were in front of her. After ten minutes of panicking she suddenly remembered she was in front of the University. The scene was very small, however you could see how devastating and scary it could be to be to forget your location in a heartbeat. The second major scene in which her relationship with her built in environment change was when she was trying to find the bathroom in her vacation home. She ended up checking every single door including a pantry and a closet before her bladder couldn’t take anymore and she peed her pants in the hallway. This moment was truly devastating because three minutes before she forgot the location she was on her way to the bathroom as usually when the thought slipped away leaving her to panic. She also felt utterly ashamed when her husband came to check up on her and found her in the hallway covered in pee. These scenes shows the challenges of people with Alzheimer’s Disease with there environments whether exterior or interior.

In the movie you see a roller coaster of emotions coming from Alice and her family. Alice numerous of times mentioned to her husband that she feels like her brain is rotting away. She was devastated that she was losing her intelligence and articulation that made the foundation of who she was as a professor and a human being. Her family took her diseased in strives however, in the end you saw the tool that it took on all her family members. They started to be careful around her and treated her differentially with small and large matters. In the end her Husband after taking care of her for many months saw that she was no longer able to be a functioning person and that she was far to gone to be his wife. He ended up making the decision to leave Alice with the younger daughter to go take a job opportunity.

After watching this movie several time, my awareness of the devastating Alzheimer’s Disease has increased tenfolds.
This movie shows you a very realistic picture of the devastating factors that come with this disease. It also showcased the disease in a younger character making the disease a little more relatable for everyone. This disease is rapid in our world right now. Many of us will know or will be the person who encounter this disease later on in our lives. I think it’s time to start to understanding how to monitor the environment to best suit the person with the diseases in the early stages to create some normality before all hope is
lost.