Still Alice by Lisa Geneva - Book Report/Review Example

Still Alice by Lisa Geneva The book Still Alice was written by an author known as Alice Genova. She first self-published it on 13th July 2007 through iUniverse. Later on, the book was acquired by Schuster and Simon and published on 6th-June-2009 by Pocket books which is currently known as Gallery books. The novel Still Alice was her first and awarded her the 2008 Bronte Prize, it was for 40 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. It has been translated into 25 languages and was picked among those of the thirty titles for World Book Night in the year 2013. Lisa Genova is a trained Neuroscientist from Harvard. A neuroscientist is a person who has trained and specializes in the study of the brain. Genova also serves as a Meisner-trained actress and a totally untrained writer but stands to be an American best-selling author of the novels Still Alice, Love Anthony and Left Neglected. She is a graduate of Bates College with a Bachelor Degree in Biopsychology. This is a section of psychology which studies the biological groundwork of behaviour, emotions as well as the mental process. She also possess a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Harvard. She has done brain research at various institution such as the National institute of Health, Massachusetts General Hospital East and also Yale medical institute and not to forget Mclean hospital. She has featured in the award winning documentary film Emmy whose core subject was about Alzheimer. She is the wife of a documentary film maker and photographer by the name Christopher Seufert. Genova pieces of writing involves talks of people who happen to live with Neurological disorder. This is a progressive disorder which affects the nervous system. Genova writes about feared, ignored and misunderstood health conditions and offers it to the public in the format of a story which is easily accessible and understandable to the general public. Genova claims that in the United States, according to statistics, one in every 88 children has autistic. Autism is a form of developmental condition which interfere with how someone relates and communicates to other people. Also, in every 68 seconds a person in the United States of America gets to be diagnosed with Alzheimer. Alzheimer is a form of disease which attacks the brain’s neurons or nerve cells which affects the neurotransmitter system especially the Acetylcholine. Neurotransmitter is a chemical message which relay, boosts and modulates signals between cells and. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that specifically engage in direct synaptic transmission within specific neurons, neuromodulators tend to act on a variety of neurons throughout the nervous system. This continues in a progressive manner and result to one losing their memory, their ability to communicate efficiently and deterioration of personality. The book tend to reveal the humanity behind Alzheimer so that if it happens to occur to us it finds human with more knowledge on how to counter attack it since they possess the real understanding, sensitivity, empathy, the best way to be a better care giver and also to motivate the individual who are suffering from those diseases. Still Alice is a compelling novel that talks about a 50 year old Alice Howland who is a mother of three grown children, they lived in a house on the Cape, Her husband John is among the professors at Harvard, her daughter Ann is a very high powered corporate lawyer who has issues with trying to get pregnant; Their only son by the name Tom happens to be a third year student in the school of medicine. Among their children, it is only Lydia who happens to incur problems since she forfeited school and instead opted to settle for acting in a school at Los Angeles. An important theoretical perspective that the writer takes in Still Alice, which also becomes the main idea of the book is to approach Alzheimer's disease from a psychological and behavioral point of view. This leads Genova writing on a number of psycho-behavioral issues and concepts throughout the book. Some of the important psycho-behavioral concepts hat the writer emphasizes on are issues of agitation, apathy and aggression, which are not just reflected in the contents of the books but also in a number of literature about Alzheimer's disease (Polakow 43). Indeed I could not help but to agree with the writer on her approach to theory, especially as she did not only lay out the psycho-behavioral symptoms of the disease but also gave professional and medical explanation to some of these symptoms. For example Genova explains that “The cognitive deficits – the symptoms of dementia – occur before the plagues form, before the neurons die. In the brain of someone with Alzheimer's, there is too much of soluble protein called amyloid-beta 42” (Genova 62). Another important aspect of the book is that it is very consistent with existing theory about Alzheimer's disease, especially those that relate to the psychology of the disease. It is not surprising that the writer treats issues such as suicide as a crucial theme in the book to reflect the outcome of Alice’s psychological reaction to the disease. For example, it is explained in literature that even though causes of cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer's is well understood, behavioral and psychological symptoms, otherwise known as BPSD are not well established in terms of causes, even though acts such as agitation and aggression can be associated with BPSD (Colman 223). At the point where Alice was contemplating on following the instructions in the butterfly file as a suicide file, she was at a crossroad of explaining what her quality of life would be like, even though the more she sought to find answers, the more she seemed to lose the battle. This part of the book was a major plus for the writer who combines the literary device of imagery with the realistic psychological touch of the issue at hand in the book. This is because it was noted that the suicide file was named the butterfly file with the picture of a butterfly at the back to depict the life of the butterfly, which was the embodiment of the beautiful blue art nouveau necklace her mother gave her to her when she was only a little girl. Just as she complained in her childhood, the butterfly was a beautiful creature that had a very short lifespan. Based on the fact that her mother explained to her that the short life of the butterfly did not necessarily mean the butterfly’s life was a tragic one, “her thoughts then rode a series of waves, traveling from unwanted jewelry to her mother’s butterfly necklace, traversing from there to her plan for suicide” (Genova 146). The thoughts that were going through Alice’s mind to have a short but beautiful life like that of a butterfly was rightly taken through the five stages of grieving, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance because for all these days that Alice would hide the butterfly file from John, she was actually transitioning through these five stages known in psychological studies as Kübler-Ross model (Polakow 84). An important approach or procedure used by the writer in gathering information was the combination of empirical evidence based perspective to the Alzheimer’s disease. One of such evidence based perspectives from a psychological viewpoint is the in-depth discussion Genova gives to neurotransmitters. For example the book both explains the place of neurotransmitters in the symptoms that Alice was showing as part of her disease and the place of neurotransmitter drugs in helping her improve in her abilities. It is recorded that “a neurotransmitter, important in learning and memory” (Genova 74) “they have me on antioxidant vitamins and aspirin, a statin, and two neurotransmitter drugs” (Genova 105). The implication that the reader gets it that since neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers for carrying, boosting and modulating signals between neurons and important body cells were necessary for learning and memory to take place (Cleverley and Philips 132), Alice was not going to gain her state of mental consciousness if she was not going to be on neurotransmitter drugs. While dealing with the psychological aspects of information with Alzheimer's disease, Genova also emphasized on the biological perspective of the disease. The general approach used by the writer in developing this point was to address Alzheimer's disease as a neurobiological feature. On the latter however, not much emphasis is laid by the writer, especially when it came to depicting the biology of the disease in Alice as a person. This may however be a pardonable omission as from the very onset the characterization of the protagonist was weaved around psychology who would go to every extent to protect her Harvard psychology professorship, claiming that “Who was she if she wasn’t a Harvard professor?” (Genova 96). In closing the analysis, the relationship between issues and concepts studied in the course and those in Still Alice will be reconciled. An important aspect of such issues of study has to do with the implication and reaction of the public to most forms of psycho-behavioral deficits and deficiencies that patients of such diseases as Alzheimer's show. By and large, comparing what is known in literature and the course of study with the approach taken by Genova would shows that there is a contrast. This is because while it is exemplified in literature of the stereotype that Alzheimer's disease is only associated with the elderly and people who are perceived to have low social and academic standing, the writer uses a character who is only 50 and a Harvard psychology professor. In fact, Alice is not just a professional but a successful and celebrated one with a well managed family who celebrated the success of her family memories of “Harvard graduation day, she and John dancing on their wedding, family portraits from when the kids were little…” (Genova 25). Genova would therefore be said to be a writer who did well to correct the wrong when it comes to stereotype on the background cause of the Alzheimer's disease. In conclusion, it would be stated that the author’s attempt to persuade me of the seriousness of Alzheimer's disease and the need for there to be pragmatic social approach to addressing the disease was convincing. I strongly believe that the writer achieved this merit from the perspective from which she approached the disease, which was a psychological perspective. This is because this perspective to the disease, coupled with how the otherwise successful professional life a Harvard professor could degenerate to a level where she would think of suicide calls for the need for there to be a pragmatic approach devoid of social parameters such as discrimination in helping better the lives of affected people. With this said, there are ways in which the writer could improve her writing on the same issue. For instance many roles could be given to other characters in the book, especially those who were very close to Alice to help consolidate the relationship between social adjustments and psychological improvements. This is because when the writer focused on the transition that was experienced in the social attitude of John towards Alice between the time before the disease and the time of the disease, it was noted that the support that Alice received from John really contributed immensely to Alice’s survival. At a point when Alice’s only inspiration to living was the voice of her little girl singing and she humming along the song, much could have been developed around this to make the sociological aspect of psychological improvement even better. Finally, the place of the topic of the book in the academic world will be elaborated. The academic world certainly needs a new approach and understanding towards Alzheimer's disease, especially when it comes to the risk factors associated with it. Clearly, Genova has taken a giant step in clearing some of the commonest misconceptions and stereotype associated with the disease, especially when it comes to aspects of the disease that has to do with age and social background of people who are commonly affected by the disease. The book has also been important in discussing the predicaments that people affected with the disease go through and how social disintegration can worsen the plight of patients. The academic and real world needs this topical issue to build an understanding that unless there is a united front to better the lives of people with the disease, very little can be done to help them. From the position that Genova takes, Alice was faced with the threat to commit suicide and her encounter with the mysterious “butterfly” file as a manifestation of unexplained psychological control and causes in Alzheimer's disease. But building on relationship between psychological control and social integration as recommended in Colman (94), the academia can use this understanding to secure the lives of patients with Alzheimer's disease because if for nothing at all, disability is not inability. Cited Works Cleverley, John and Philips, Dennis, C. Visions of childhood: Influential models from Locke to Spock. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. 2007. Print. Colman, Adams, D., and Geller, Muller. H. (Eds.). Group Relations Reader: 2. Alpha Press Limited: New York. 2008. Print. Genova Still Alice. New York: Pocket Books, 2009. Lu, Linda C, and Juergen H. M. D. Bludau. Alzheimer's Disease. Westport: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Internet resource. Polakow, Vincent. The erosion of childhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2012. Print. Read More