On 2022-06-30 12:05 PM, Hal (via Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> ALS is a *terible* "disease" (scare quotes because it is an
> autoimmunue condition). It is, functionally, untreatable and
> progrssive. A friend I was staying (to be closer to the hospital
> than our home) made the comparison that ALS and Alzheimers are
> opposites. Altzheimers destroys the mind leaving the body
> functional. ALS destroys the body leaving the mind functional.
> On the whole, she said she'd prefer Altzheimers, given that ALS
> leaves a live, aware, self in a non-functioning body. A horrible
> trap.
The effects of Altzheimer's are highly variable. Sometimes it's a
generalized "fading" of memory and cognition. Sometimes particular
cognitive areas are hit, as with Sir Terry's language skills.
And then there's frontal dementia, which knocks out self-control.
Sometimes this is relatively benign. My wife (a dementia specialist)
tells of an incident when she was meeting with a new patient and
his wife. When the patient approached her, sitting in her office,
the guy got a big grin and lunged at her across her desk, both arms
and hands outstretched, and shouted "Boobies!" His wife was mortified.
But sometimes... everything that's horrid and nasty about a person
is unleashed. One of my high-school teachers went this route, and
was living in a care facility for a couple of decades. It was months
after her passing, her family told us at a memorial gathering, that
they were regaining their memories of the intelligent, creative,
loving mother and wife that she had been. I dread the idea that
someday, there may be a monster living in my body, with my memories,
hurting the people who are closest to me.
Joel
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