The last movie I watched that featured themes of abnormal behavior is a movie from 2014, named “Still Alice”. This movie is about a 50 year old woman, Alice, who diagnosed with early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease (Pierre, 2015). Alice was a linguistic professor at the Columbia University. She had hard time teaching as her memory begins to fade. She started forgetting words, names, faces, and places. Alice made a suicide instructions video for herself, so that she knows what to do when she cannot answer those personal questions she set in her phone anymore. One day, Alice opened the suicide video and tried to finds the pills by following the instructions. However, she quickly forgotten her suicide plan after being interrupted by her caregiver.
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A psychologist with biological theory would argue that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the malfunction of the brain. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease have extraordinary number of plaques and tangles within their brain areas compared to a normal person (Comer, 2014). Besides the excessive number of plaques and tangles, researchers also believed that genetic is one of the main factors that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, especially for rare cases like the early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers discovered that early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the genetic mutations of two proteins - beta-amyloid precursor protein (beta-APP) and presenilin protein. These genetic mutations further lead to the abnormal formations of plaque and beta amyloid protein buildups which cause Alzheimer’s disease (Comer, 2014). This disease can be passed on to the next generation of family members. However, genetic factors that are related to late onset Alzheimer’s disease are different from the early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. Rather than the two proteins that involved in early onset Alzheimer’s diseases, it is the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene that caused excessive formation of plaques and tangles which further leads to late onset Alzheimer’s disease (Comer, …show more content…
As mentioned earlier, symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease varies from mild to major severity. Patients who are in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease usually show mild level of abnormal behaviors which does not affect their ability to take care themselves. Abnormal behaviors of Alzheimer’s disease patients worsen over time as they enter later stage of the disease. Severe stage of Alzheimer’s disease can affect patients’ ability to be independent and limits their ability to carry out daily activities. Like Alice from the movie, Alzheimer’s patients are confused or easily forget about time, place, names, and daily routines. Information that seems effortless for normal people to remember, such as names or faces of family members, home address or phone number, can be challenging for Alzheimer’s patients to remember or recall. As individuals started and continue to forget little things or information, it will leads them to make poor judgement in their everyday life. Besides external behaviors like forgetting or losing memories, Alzheimer’s disease can also affect individuals’ internal behaviors like feelings and thoughts. According to the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Caregiver Center (n.d.), patients with Alzheimer’s disease can also experience external behaviors like aggression, sleep issues, hallucinations, repetition, and wandering, besides memory loss. Most patients also experienced
A psychologist with biological theory would argue that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the malfunction of the brain. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease have extraordinary number of plaques and tangles within their brain areas compared to a normal person (Comer, 2014). Besides the excessive number of plaques and tangles, researchers also believed that genetic is one of the main factors that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, especially for rare cases like the early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers discovered that early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the genetic mutations of two proteins - beta-amyloid precursor protein (beta-APP) and presenilin protein. These genetic mutations further lead to the abnormal formations of plaque and beta amyloid protein buildups which cause Alzheimer’s disease (Comer, 2014). This disease can be passed on to the next generation of family members. However, genetic factors that are related to late onset Alzheimer’s disease are different from the early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. Rather than the two proteins that involved in early onset Alzheimer’s diseases, it is the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene that caused excessive formation of plaques and tangles which further leads to late onset Alzheimer’s disease (Comer, …show more content…
As mentioned earlier, symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease varies from mild to major severity. Patients who are in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease usually show mild level of abnormal behaviors which does not affect their ability to take care themselves. Abnormal behaviors of Alzheimer’s disease patients worsen over time as they enter later stage of the disease. Severe stage of Alzheimer’s disease can affect patients’ ability to be independent and limits their ability to carry out daily activities. Like Alice from the movie, Alzheimer’s patients are confused or easily forget about time, place, names, and daily routines. Information that seems effortless for normal people to remember, such as names or faces of family members, home address or phone number, can be challenging for Alzheimer’s patients to remember or recall. As individuals started and continue to forget little things or information, it will leads them to make poor judgement in their everyday life. Besides external behaviors like forgetting or losing memories, Alzheimer’s disease can also affect individuals’ internal behaviors like feelings and thoughts. According to the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Caregiver Center (n.d.), patients with Alzheimer’s disease can also experience external behaviors like aggression, sleep issues, hallucinations, repetition, and wandering, besides memory loss. Most patients also experienced