Familial Alzheimer's Disease In The Film, Still Alice

The movie Still Alice depicts a highly educated family who suddenly have to deal with the struggle of having a mother diagnosed with familial Alzheimer’s disease. The film shows Alice’s doctor visits as she seeks help, her heartbreaking news to her family, and how her life changes so dramatically in such a short period of time. The change in Alice’s life trajectory not only affects her life and well-being, but her families as well. The initial reaction that Alice had was important in knowing who she was as a person, everyone in Alice’s family reacted and acted differently in response to the chronic illness, and the type of Alzheimer’s that Alice had changed the perception that the family had. When Alice first began forgetting small things, like a word during a lecture, she brushed it off as if it wasn’t a huge deal. However, when she goes running on campus like she has …show more content…
Anna and Tom decide to get tested and it turns out that Tom does not have the gene, but Anna does. This news is not only heartbreaking to Anna, but to Alice as well because she felt responsible. Lydia decides to not get tested because she wants her life to just unfold, plus there isn’t anything to be done if she does have the disease. Through this issue we see that chronic illnesses that are genetic can be even harder to deal with because if the child is going to get it then they have to watch their parent wither away knowing that that will be them in the future. This also raised the issue of embryo selection for certain genes. Anna was going through IVF treatment in order to have kids and once she found out that she had the gene she made it part of her treatment to only implant the embryos that do not have the Alzheimer’s gene. This raises the argument about whether humans should basically be choosing who lives, but it shows what good can be done because of