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    The Forgetting: Understanding Alzheimer’s: A Biography of a Disease
    Unavailable
    The Forgetting: Understanding Alzheimer’s: A Biography of a Disease
    Unavailable
    The Forgetting: Understanding Alzheimer’s: A Biography of a Disease
    Ebook314 pages4 hours

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

    By David Shenk

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Winner of the 2002 BMA Popular Medicine Book Prize: This is a haunting literary and scientific examination of Alzheimer’s disease and the race to find a cure.

    ‘A truly remarkable book – the definitive work on Alzheimer’s, both in social and medical terms, “The Forgetting” is incisive, humane, never ponderous, full of dry humour and 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 foreword ‘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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateSep 22, 2016
    ISBN9780007439669
    Unavailable
    The Forgetting: Understanding Alzheimer’s: A Biography of a Disease

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    Reviews for The Forgetting

    4/5

    29 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Excellent exporation of the disease - from its initial discovery, pathololgy, historical + literary significance, psychological + developmental aspects, philosophical perspectives as well as treatments and new research area's.
    • 5/5
      Although this book documents and explains the progress of Alzheimer's disease from the early to the final stages, it ends up leaving the reader not only comforted but also with an almost-appreciation for this manner of death. Mr. Shenk has done a great service in making this information available. If you should read this, sir, know that I (and others) thank you.
    • 4/5
      I am taking a training class for my job about Alzheimer's and I decided to read this book because I wanted more information about the disease. This book was very readable and simple to understand, but still had a fair amount of valuable medical information.

      In the beginning sections of the book, I kept thinking how amazing the human brain is. I guess it is really no wonder that it doesn't always hold out as long as the rest of the body. When I think about it, I am just totally in awe of the fact that all the neurons in my brain are firing in exactly the right way that I can be sitting here, typing, forming coherent thoughts, recognizing everything around me, etc. The brain is just an amazing organ.

      This book provided a well-balanced portrayal of the disease by alternating medical information with personal stories of individuals affected by Alzheimer's. I thought it provided a very humanizing account of the disease. For much of the book, I was depressed thinking about all of the horrible things that Alzheimer's disease does to individuals. However, the end of the book was slightly uplifting. Alzheimer's is still a tragic disease, but in the last few chapters of the book, the author really makes a case for how the disease really has some things to teach us about life and humanity and the way we care for each other.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Shenk makes it clear to people that Alzheimer’s is going to be a huge socioeconomic issue within in the next ten to twenty years, but the book also approaches Alzheimer’s with a sense of dignity, stating that the people who live with it should not be treated as outcasts or lost causes. He handles the subject matter with the utmost respect, giving equal time to those suffering as to those fighting for a cure. The pacing and structuring work so well that I tended to forget I was reading a non-fiction narrative. The greatest strength of the book is that Shenk steps aside and lets others speak in their own words rather than try to take over their stories and bend them to the will of his narrative.

      1 person found this helpful