In the past week in our lectures and also in our book, we talked about the different parts of the brain and how each section functions. We learned that the frontal lobe aids in our memory, and that our temporal lobe also aids in memory. The frontal lobe holds more of our general memory whereas the temporal lobe holds more of the memories from our past that make up our autobiography. What I'm curious about is how each of our four lobes are affected by Alzheimer's Disease.
My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease many years ago, so I have had personal experience with what happens to a person effected by this disease. It's no question that they lose their memory. Watching my grandmother progress through the stages of Alzheimer's, some things still remain a mystery to me.
It's clear that with Alzheimer's the short term memory in the frontal lobe gets worse faster than anything else in the other lobes. But which goes next? Eye sight? Hearing? The ability to talk?
As my grandmother got worse, she began to forget how to speak. She would mumble or make up words, although she thought she was talking to us like normal conversations. It makes me wonder how much of her memory from her past still remained. She couldn't communicate with us, but to her she was telling us a story.
Alzheimer's is a difficult disease to deal with, but sometimes I would wonder how much my grandma actually remembered. When she did finally remember things, what triggered her memory? Was it a word? A sound? Did my grandma ever recognize my face? They said she was happier when I was around, but that's hard to tell if it was me or just the really powerful drugs taking effect that day.
