From the library: Still Alice

Last updated on: September 26, 2015 at 12:11 am by Jane the Actuary

From the library: Still Alice 2015-09-26T00:11:18-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Wow.

I just finished watching Still Alice, and I still feel weepy, and I should get turn in for the night, especially since I checked it out from the library over a week ago, but didn’t have the chance to watch it earlier, so I had to watch it tonight after getting back from the “middle school band night” football game (we left after halftime), in order to return it tomorrow morning before the library opens up and the grace period ends.

The storyline is easily explained: shortly after her 50th birthday, Alice, a brilliant linguistics professor at Colombia, and mother of three grown children, is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The movie chronicles the progression of the disease, from moments of forgetfulness, to leaving her job, inability to remember how to tie her shoes, needing help dressing, confusion about family, and a description that sometimes she knows where she is, and more often she’s just lost, maybe remembering something from the past — and the movie depicts her just sitting on the couch looking at a TV that isn’t even turned on. The movie also depicts her relationships — her husband ultimately can’t handle the situation and her youngest daughter, who at the start of the movie is unsuccessfully trying to make her way as an actress in L.A. and squabbling with Alice, who wants her to go to college instead, moves back to take care of her while her husband, an ambitious scientist, moves to Minnesota for a dream job at the Mayo Clinic.

One of my fellow Patheos bloggers is dealing with this situation right now, with respect to her elderly mother, and has shared pieces of her story. Closer to home (and I write this only because I blog anonymously so I don’t think I’m invading their privacy), Dad has been diagnosed with dementia — not Alzheimer’s, to be sure, and I’m not sure, and Mom isn’t sure, because she doesn’t have a clear explanation from the doctor, or maybe the doctor doesn’t really even know, to what extent this was the result of the head injury going on 1 1/2 years ago, and to what extent the injury just exacerbated developing symptoms — but nonetheless the scenes toward the end of the movie, in which Alice sits passively, remind me too much of our last several visits home. Dad’s case isn’t as extreme by any means, but it still worries us greatly, especially since Mom and Dad live 5 hours away, our opportunities to visit them are few, and Mom’s health isn’t great, either.

Remember when Newt Gingrich ran for president four years ago? OK, fine, he was mostly forgettable as a presidential candidate, but one thing I do recall is that he made a big pitch for substantially increased funding for research into Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. Normally I’m skeptical of calling any sort of increased government spending “investments” — e.g., “investing” in building new roads or bridges — but in this case, if scientists could find a cure, or a treatment of symptoms, or a vaccine of some kind (rather than just retrospective studies that say, “do crossword puzzles”, which, by the way, my Dad did every day, and continues to, except now he doesn’t get very far), it would be a tremendous accomplishment and produce substantial benefits to both patients, their caregivers, and society as a whole.

People often speak of wanting a “Manhattan Project”, that is, a major, sustained government-funded research effort to meet their goal, though it’s often something like the dream of an abundant and cheap source of renewable, non-polluting, non-carbon-generating energy. But this is where I’d spend my money.

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