Alzheimer's Lost Memory

867 Words4 Pages
ENC 1101 2nd period October 2nd, 2015 A quote by John Irving states that “Your memory is a monster; you forget- it doesn’t. It simply flies things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you- and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you.” This quote is so true; your memory of the past can take charge of your life. You don’t remember everything that has happened to you but you remember stuff that your brain finds important. You end up “forgetting” things that your brain doesn’t feel are as important as other things. When you see, feel, taste or experience something that reminds you of a past situation, your brain triggers that memory which can cause you to second guess what to do. For example, you see a snake. You were once bite by one, the memory pops into your head and you…show more content…
Alzheimer’s is a type of memory loss cause by plaques and tangles in the proteins, causing the cell factory to not work correctly. As you age, your brain develops tangles and plaques but in Alzheimer’s patients there are more than normal. The brain will slowly start to die and they end up forgetting more and more as the disease continues to worsen. In “Alzheimer’s challenges notions of memory and identity” by Tania Lombrozo, she states that “within philosophy, theories of personal identity rely on memory as a basic for identity.” So without memory, you wouldn’t be the same person. Alzheimer’s patients still have their same morals but they don’t have their memories. So the memories we have about people end up causing an identity to be made. For example, always being a nice and caring

More about Alzheimer's Lost Memory

Open Document