Neuro Note — Still Alice

For this neuro note I chose to watch the movie, Still Alice. In 2015, Julianne Moore won the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for best actress for her role as Alice. I’ve been wanting to watch this movie for years, and now I get the chance to watch it for educational purposes!
 
This movie follows the life of Alice Howland, a wife, mother, and renowned linguistics professor. She begins to notice lapses in her memory. For instance she has gotten lost while on a run, she forgets common words, and has forgotten some of her appointments. She decides to see a neurologist who performs a series of memory cognition assessments and schedules a MRI and PET scan. When the neurologist finds areas in her brain that are high in the amount of beta amyloid he diagnoses her with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. He goes to explain that genetic testing is crucial because if she has the gene for familial Alzheimer’s disease the odds of her passing it along are 50/50. She begins taking Aricept and Namenda which are medications to help alleviate some of her symptoms. Alice struggles to stay connected to who she once was and cope with what is happening to her once brilliant mind. One method she uses to test her cognitive memory daily is to create a list in her phone of common questions such as “what is your birthday.” or “what is the name of your oldest daughter?” and she tries to answer them. This movie truly highlights the external and internal struggles this disease has on the individual as well as their family. Lots of tears were shed watching this film, but it is truly a breathtaking and inspiring movie about the progression of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. After watching this movie I feel more educated on this heart wrenching disease that takes such a toll on someone’s life.
 
To further my learning, I reviewed my notes from class and went to the John Hopkin's website to dive deeper into this disease. I learned that a very small number of people with Alzheimer disease have the early-onset form. Many of them are in their 40s and 50s when the disease takes hold. I also learned from their website that genetic (familial) Alzheimer's is very rare. A few hundred people have genes that directly contribute to Alzheimer disease, and they start showing symptoms of the disease in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. Something to be hopeful for, is that, researchers hope that studies on biomarkers will allow experts to diagnose the disease more quickly and can indicate the progress of a disease. Early-onset Alzheimer's disease can be a difficult disease to cope with, and it helps to have a positive outlook and to stay as active and mentally engaged as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film, because it truly showed the progression and symptoms of Early-onset Alzheimer's disease from what we have learned in this course to a "T." While watching this film I was able to apply what I learned in this course and actually see how this conditions impact people's lives. I definitely recommend watching Still Alice if you want to deepen your knowledge about this disease and visit the John Hopkin's website for more information as well.

Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease. Johns Hopkins Medicine. (n.d.). https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/alzheimers-disease/earlyonset-alzheimer-disease

StillAlice. S T I L L A L I C E. (n.d.). https://www.sonyclassics.com/stillalice/