| View Larger Image | The Forgetting : Understanding Alzheimer"s : A Biography Of A Disease | Hardcoverby David Shenk (Author)
| 5 Used starting at: | $4.99 |
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| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Harper Collins 2002 | | Page Count: | 400 Pages | | Publication Date: | January 01, 2002 | | Sales Rank: | 4,306,280th |
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 38 reviews)
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"The Forgetting" is one to fill your mind with knowledge, hope, and insight. by Ruiju Shen  5 Stars
August 27, 2009
The author does an extraordinary job painting the complex details about Alzheimer's into a portrait that can be easily accessible to the general audience. I've learned many fascinating things through this book. After finishing this book, I have migrated from believing that Alzheimer's is a horrible, dreaded disease to one with a sense of appreciation for the inevitable things in life. Shenk quoted in his book, ""Babies are born with no memory. They gather memories as they grow. As they get old they lose these memories so they can be reborn again in void."
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The Classic Text on Alzheimer's by John Thorndike (Athens, OH United States) 5 Stars
March 16, 2009
This is the classic text on Alzheimer's. It's almost a decade old, but reads like it was written yesterday. Shenk tells us how the disease was discovered, how it develops in the brain and how it plays out in the daily lives of patients.
I read this within a month of my father's diagnosis of advanced second stage dementia, and I've never been so comforted by a book. Even now, a few years later, I occasionally take "The Forgetting" down from the shelf and hold it. I read a few pages. I feel secure with it, I'm in the hands of a skilled, trustworthy and empathic writer.
Reading the book the first time, I was electrified to recognize in my father almost every symptom Shenk described. At the same time I was soothed, because I understood that it wasn't my father who was so bizarre, it was the disease playing out in his hippocampus, amygdala and temporal lobes. To me it was a relief to know that his brain was going bad in an entirely common way: that he was not, if you will, a strange human being, but entirely normal for a patient with Alzheimer's.
David Shenk is the ideal journalist, sympathetic without the least hint of sentimentality. His prose is perfectly crafted, never an awkward sentence, with a perfect balance of exposition and narrative. That is, he gives us technical explanations about the disease, but we're never far from the stories of a lively set of characters. We hear about Frau Auguste D., the original dementia patient of Alois Alzheimer, and Ronald Reagan, and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Jonathan Swift, two writers who suffered extreme memory loss and the inability to make sense of even the words they'd written themself. It's a richly peopled world, and Shenk makes it clear that this is a timeless disease, one that has been with us always.
I was surprised by the Acknowledgments section of the book, which goes on for three full pages and names a hundred people. You can see there how much research went into the book. But while reading it, I felt as if Shenk had sat down and typed it out without the least effort. Like a great athlete, he makes the job look effortless.
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Expanding the understanding of Alzheimer Disease by Emiltante (Rhode Island) 5 Stars
December 24, 2008
THE FORGETTING is an exceptional book on the subject of Alzheimer's. One follows the historical biography of this disease through lucid and engaging writing, with much anecdotal evidence of its' effects upon prominent persons, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Willem de Kooning. The author offers ways of understanding the disease that include perceptions of some actual sufferers who, themselves, offer their insights. Having read several books on this topic, this is the one I pass along to others as a valuable book to expand one's understanding about Alzheimer's, while being eminently readable.
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Alzheimer's:Portrait of an Epidemic by Peter Charlesworth (Auckland, New Zealand)  4 Stars
August 16, 2008
I purchased this book after seeing it described as "remarkable" by Oliver Sacks, in his own book "Musicophilia". I gave the book to a friend, whose husband is sadly, suffering the early signs of probable Alzheimer's disease, but as a retired surgeon, with only a rudimentary knowledge of the medical aspects of the condition myself, I was also interested to read it first. For some reason, I found the introductory passages of the book a little dense, but thereafter, it was thoroughly engaging and enlightening. In particular, the book struck a nice balance between explaining the known microscopic biological details of the illness, and practical aspects that might help a relative or care-giver come to terms with the condition on a daily basis. Examples of the experience and behaviour of well-known historic figures who probably had Alzheimer's helped to emphasise the unselective nature of the illness, and the potentially depressing aspects of the course of the disease were treated with great sensitivity. Overall, I thought it was excellent. My friend (who is non-medical), has found it to be very informative and in many ways reassuring, in her attempt to understand what is happening to her husband.
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The title haunts to tell of the forgetting disease by armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota) 4 Stars
July 17, 2007
You don't have to be a science nut to be enthralled by David Shenk's book, The Forgetting--Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic. From the first official case of Alzheimer's (Auguste D., a fifty-one-year-old German woman first treated by neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer in 1901), to the use of transgenics to study the disease in mice, Shenk covers everything you need to know about the harrowing disease that, by 2050, will affect 15,000,000 Americans. Except, that is--a surefire way to prevent it.
After 100 years, scientists still do not know exactly why humans get Alzheimer's, but they have learned a lot along the way. Shenk explains even the most intricate details of the disease clearly and carefully, making use of helpful analogies and explaining how memory works on a biological level. He chronicles the decline of several public figures, each of which was either diagnosed with the disease or likely had it before Alzheimer's twentieth-century discovery, including some of the greatest minds of the Western world: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jonathan Swift, Jorge Luis Borges, Willem de Kooning.
Shenk is careful to keep a human element running through the book, reminding readers that science is not a cold, black-and-white world, but a flexible, complex world on which our daily lives depend. Each chapter begins with an anecdote from a family caregiver (spouse, child, etc.), and Shenk follows the progress (or rather, deterioration) of a support group for patients in the early stages. He also writes of a listserve, where caregivers from across the nation ask questions, give advice, share experiences, vent frustration, and celebrate those rare lucid moments.
Alzheimer's risks increase drastically with age, and, as Baby Boomers near retirement, it becomes crucial for average Americans to understand all they can about a disease that will prove both emotionally and financially devastating even for those who do not receive a diagnosis. Shenk gives us hope, however, with discussions of scientific advances and a chapter devoted to how each of us can improve our odds and perhaps escape the ultimate forgetting.
Armchair Interviews says: Well worth reading for the future--our parents or our own.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| The Forgetting - A Portrait of Alzheimer's
Starring: David Hyde Pierce
Directed By: Elizabeth Arledge
Also With: Elizabeth Arledge (Producer), Doug Quade (Editor), Naomi S. Boak (Producer), Whitney Johnson (Producer)
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 11/01/2005
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