The Forgetting: Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic
- ISBN13: 9780385498388
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Afflicting nearly half of all persons over the age of 85, Alzheimer’s disease kills nearly 100,000 Americas a year as it insidiously robs them of their memory and wreaks havoc on the lives of their loved ones. It was once minimized and misunderstood as forgetfulness in the elderly, but Alzheimer’s is now at the forefront of many medical and scientific agendas, for as the world’s population ages, the disease will kill millions more and touch the lives of virtually everyone.
The Forgetting is a scrupulously researched, multilayered analysis of Alzheimer’s and its social, medical, and spiritual implications. David Shenk presents us with much more than a detailed explanation of its causes and effects and the search for a cure. He movingly captures the disease’s impact on its victims and their families, and he looks back through history, explaining how Alzheimer’s most likely afflicted such figures as Jonathan Swift, Ralph Waldo Emerson,and William de Kooning. The result is a searing, powerfully engaging account of Alzheimer’s disease, offering a grim but sympathetic and ultimately encouraging portrait.Amazon.com Review
First attracted to his subject by its horrific ability to destroy the human mind and body, journalist David Shenk ultimately finds reasons to accept Alzheimer’s disease–and almost forgive it–in The Forgetting. Shenk describes his work as a biography, the life story of a biological outlaw that sends victims “on a slow but certain trajectory toward forgetting and death.” But his illuminating portrait of this growing epidemic offers more than a basic chronology. Shenk begins with the disease’s christening in 1906, when German physician Alois Alzheimer discovered mysterious tangles and plaques in the brain of a dead woman who in life had suffered severe memory loss and dementia. The tale unfolds to reveal a host of intriguing players: struggling scientists (the clever, the bullheaded, and the pharmaceutically endowed), politicians divided by opposing priorities, exhausted caregivers, and patients whose biological clocks virtually tick backward over an average eight-year period. It includes impossible twists: longer life expectancies and successful treatments for other diseases mean more cases of Alzheimer’s will inevitably occur. Shenk’s graceful synthesis of personal accounts (from Plato to Reagan) with a century-long search for answers and cures leads him to an impressive conclusion. Perhaps Alzheimer’s disease is much like winter: “Once it is gone, we’ll face less hardship, but we’ll also have lost an important lens on life.” –Liane Thomas
For more information: The Forgetting: Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic
The Forgetting: Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic
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Some history and lots of free-associating tangents about this terrible disease but not much useful information on the actual disease
Rating: 1 / 5
I may be biased because I was looking for the newest findings on this disease and instead found a pretty fluffy overview–Sheck is a fine writer but clearly did not do enough research to write a useful book.
Rating: 1 / 5
A must-read!!!! If you only are going to buy one book on this subject– your search is over! This is truly a gem!!! Informative, intelligent, compassionate!!!
Rating: 5 / 5
OK, it’s an interesting book, with much anecdotal information and philosophical musings, which the author is obviously good at. Included, for example, is how the disease affected certain famous people. However don’t expect much here in the way of scientific information or practical advice. The book is also rambling and repetitive, encompassing tangental topics such as the scenery of New Mexico, and Nazi Germany. The practical information could be distilled down into one short chapter. Nevertheless the book may help you if you are having to cope with this disease by giving some perspective to it.
Rating: 3 / 5
Since I only rate this book only 3 out of 5 stars, my review will no doubt be found “not very useful”…I noticed that the lower the rating readers give, the less useful the review is, and vice versa.
My reason for reading this and all other books I’ve read about Alzheimer Disease is probably the same as yours. I have a reason to want to learn more because I have a loved one that suffers from Alzheimers, I am the full time caregiver for my Mother.
When I first started reading, I thought this was going to be the best and most informative book on the subject I had ever read. But as I went on, I felt the writer was mostly out to prove his writing abilities and that he is well educated. I don’t read these kinds of books to be impressed with writing abilities, and I sure don’t care how educated author might be. It is written in pure NPR and Washington Post fashion, so perhaps if you’re impressed with that, perhaps you’ll be more impressed than me with his efforts.
By the time I finished the book (I admit, I did have to finish it) I was sick of hearing about Ralph Waldo Emerson, the authors idle. If you want to write a book about Emerson, do it…but if the book has Alzheimers in the title, you told me way more than I needed to know about Emerson.
That being said, it is definitely worth reading, and I’m glad I read it. Just don’t put it first on your list about this subject.
Rating: 3 / 5