Alzheimers and the effects Essay Example for Free

Alzheimers and the effects Essay Alzheimers is a disease of the brain that causes a loss in memory. This results in dementia, loss of brain functions (thinking, remembering, and reasoning) severe enough to interfere with everyday life. When German physician, Alois Alzheimer, first described the disease in 1907, it was thought to be rare. Today, Alzheimers disease is the most common cause of dementia, affecting 10% of people 65 years old, and nearly 50% of those age 85 or older. An estimated four million Americans have Alzheimers. Alzheimers disease usually begins gradually, causing a person to forget recent events and to have difficulty performing familiar tasks. How quickly the disease advances differs from person to person, causing confusion, personality and behavior changes, and impaired judgment. Communication becomes difficult for Alzheimers patients. They struggle to find words, finish thoughts, or follow directions. Eventually, people with Alzheimers become unable to care for themselves. Scientists still dont know what causes the disease. Age and family history are possible risk factors for the disease. Scientists are exploring the role of genetics in the development of Alzheimers, studying chromosome 19. Rarer forms of the disease, which happen to people in their 30s and 40s, called early-onset, often run within families and appear to be related to chromosome 1, chromosome 14, and chromosome 21. Many researchers and physicians are coming to believe that Alzheimers is a complex disease, probably caused by a variety of influences. Alzheimers affects both the mental health and Social health. It is mental in the way that Alzheimers victims can not think clearly, remember, and reason. Patience can not deal with stress. It is social health in the way that victims can not interact well with people to build satisfying relationships. They can not communicate well with family members or friends. Victims may forget who people are. My grandfather Henry B. Harris was diagnosed with Alzheimers when he was about 76 he lived to be 82. During those six years he gradually forgot who members of the family were, even at times he did not remember his wife. About one year before he passed away he was in a nursing home. Knowing that  my grandfather had the disease makes the likelihood that I will have it more probable. Cases where several members of a single family have had been diagnoses with Alzheimers disease are rare. Much more common is if a single family member is diagnosed as having probable Alzheimers (meaning that physicians are 80 to 90 percent certain that it is Alzheimers). A persons risk of developing the disease seems to be slightly higher if a first-degree relative (brother, sister, parent) has the disease. Perhaps family members were exposed to something in the environment that caused the disease. Everyone has forgotten where they parked the car or the name of an acquaintance at one time or another. And many healthy individuals are less able to remember certain kinds of information as they get older. The symptoms of Alzheimers disease are much more severe than such simple memory lapses. Alzheimer symptoms affect communication, learning, thinking, reasoning, and can have an impact on a persons work and social life.

Learning to Read and Write: Language on the Brain :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Learning to Read and Write: Language on the Brain When I was little, my favorite book was Happy Birthday Moon. For a while, it was my nightly bedtime story. Anyone who offered to read aloud to me was immediately proffered this book. After some time, I knew the story by heart, word for word. I could not quite read the book but I had memorized the framework of it and so could tell the story myself. The day that I learned to finally recognize the words themselves was so exciting. When the blur of squiggly lines on the page became letters with sound and meaning, a whole new dimension opened up. Every form of human expression is codified within some framework of language. As an English major, I study how people manipulate and interpret language in order to communicate. As a tutor with a reading enrichment program, I sometimes encounter kids who do not share this love of reading and writing. As it is my job to help them master and gather more enjoyment from their dealings with language, and since brain equals behavior, I thought this web paper the perfect opportunity to ask few questions. How does the brain process language? Why do some people enjoy reading and writing better than others do? Why is it easier for some people to learn to manipulate language? And which came first the brain, or the linguistic framework that defines and identifies it? I have learned that language, like the nervous system, is a complicated blueprint which humans use to communicate with, navigate, and interpret, the world. For most people, the parts of the brain that process language are located in the left hemisphere (3). The primary sections in the brain that allow us to read, write, and speak communicably are: the left frontal cortex or Borca's Area, the posterior part of the temporal lobe or Wernicke's Area and a bundle of nerves called the arcuate fasciculus (3). The angular gyrus, at the back of the brain, interprets the words and letters that compose language (4). In order for a word or a sentence to be understood when it is read, an action potential must travel the network of these various parts. First, the information must get from the page to the primary visual cortex. From there is must go to the posterior angular gyrus, near Wernicke's area. Then, if the word or sentence is to be read aloud, it must travel to Borca's Area and the primary motor cortex (3).

Soldier’s Home

In Ernest Hemingway’s short story, â€Å"Soldier’s Home†, a young man named Krebs is unable to relate to his mother and home life after he returned from the First World War. After Krebs saw death and destruction in the wars most bloody battles, he returns home where his parents try to get him back to his normal routines. His view of the world has changed drastically since the war. He no longer feels love in his heart and cannot lie to his mother when she asks if he loves her. One of the famous lines Hemingway wrote, â€Å"Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate.† Like bacon his heart has been hardened by what he had seen in World War I and he knew he must get far away from his parents to be able to get his life back in order. Harold Krebs after graduating from a Methodist college in Kansas enlisted in the Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until 1919. While at war he saw many tragedies that changed his life forever. When he returns home he does not get a heroes welcome because many had returned before him. At first Krebs did not want to talk about the war but later on when he felt the need no one would listen. He spent his days reading, walking and admiring the girls but a lot had changed since he had been gone. He thought about going out with some of the girls he used to know and remembers the girls he knew overseas but finds, â€Å"the young girls had grown up. But they lived in such a complicated world with already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or courage to break in it.† Krebs has a hard time relating to his parents and he finds himself not wanting to go watch his sister play ball. The climax to the story is when Krebs's mother asks, â€Å"Don't you love your mother, dear boy?† and he answers, â€Å"No†. Even though he had been feeling unhappy, useless, and out of place since he had returned from the war, he had been drifting along, going through the motions. He had been stagnating, spending his time sitting on the front porch, reading, trying â€Å"to keep his life from being complicated†. The final conflict with his mother forces Krebs to face the fact that he cannot stay. He lies to his mother to make her feel better after he has hurt her with the truth, but is â€Å"sick and vaguely nauseated† by his duplicity. As his mother prays over him at the end of the story, Krebs resolves to go away to Kansas City and start his life again, away from the home and family to which he can no longer belong. In the story, â€Å"Soldier’s Home† it is told from the third person narrator point of view. Hemingway, having been a former journalist is able to show how distant Krebs is because of being the type of journalist who is detached just like Krebs was detached by his experience in World War I. As Hemingway writes he shows how Krebs holds his emotions in that he knows his mother will not understand. When Krebs calls his mom â€Å"Mummy† he is trying to comfort her by acting like a child. At the end Krebs makes a decision to leave and go to Kansas City because he feels he may not ever reconnect with his family. Harold Krebs is a man who has gone through a life-changing event and has experienced many consequences made by his own choices and decisions. He then has to come to the understanding that he has to try and rebuild his life as he knew it. Things weren’t working out at his family’s house so he decided to move to Kansas City where he would get a job. This war was a hundred years ago and Krebs came back and had no clue what to do with his life when he got back. The same thing goes for the soldiers of the war in Afghanistan they see so much that traumatizes them that they do not know how to act when they are around their families. Soldier’s Home In Ernest Hemingway’s short story, â€Å"Soldier’s Home†, a young man named Krebs is unable to relate to his mother and home life after he returned from the First World War. After Krebs saw death and destruction in the wars most bloody battles, he returns home where his parents try to get him back to his normal routines. His view of the world has changed drastically since the war. He no longer feels love in his heart and cannot lie to his mother when she asks if he loves her. One of the famous lines Hemingway wrote, â€Å"Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate.† Like bacon his heart has been hardened by what he had seen in World War I and he knew he must get far away from his parents to be able to get his life back in order. Harold Krebs after graduating from a Methodist college in Kansas enlisted in the Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until 1919. While at war he saw many tragedies that changed his life forever. When he returns home he does not get a heroes welcome because many had returned before him. At first Krebs did not want to talk about the war but later on when he felt the need no one would listen. He spent his days reading, walking and admiring the girls but a lot had changed since he had been gone. He thought about going out with some of the girls he used to know and remembers the girls he knew overseas but finds, â€Å"the young girls had grown up. But they lived in such a complicated world with already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or courage to break in it.† Krebs has a hard time relating to his parents and he finds himself not wanting to go watch his sister play ball. The climax to the story is when Krebs's mother asks, â€Å"Don't you love your mother, dear boy?† and he answers, â€Å"No†. Even though he had been feeling unhappy, useless, and out of place since he had returned from the war, he had been drifting along, going through the motions. He had been stagnating, spending his time sitting on the front porch, reading, trying â€Å"to keep his life from being complicated†. The final conflict with his mother forces Krebs to face the fact that he cannot stay. He lies to his mother to make her feel better after he has hurt her with the truth, but is â€Å"sick and vaguely nauseated† by his duplicity. As his mother prays over him at the end of the story, Krebs resolves to go away to Kansas City and start his life again, away from the home and family to which he can no longer belong. In the story, â€Å"Soldier’s Home† it is told from the third person narrator point of view. Hemingway, having been a former journalist is able to show how distant Krebs is because of being the type of journalist who is detached just like Krebs was detached by his experience in World War I. As Hemingway writes he shows how Krebs holds his emotions in that he knows his mother will not understand. When Krebs calls his mom â€Å"Mummy† he is trying to comfort her by acting like a child. At the end Krebs makes a decision to leave and go to Kansas City because he feels he may not ever reconnect with his family. Harold Krebs is a man who has gone through a life-changing event and has experienced many consequences made by his own choices and decisions. He then has to come to the understanding that he has to try and rebuild his life as he knew it. Things weren’t working out at his family’s house so he decided to move to Kansas City where he would get a job. This war was a hundred years ago and Krebs came back and had no clue what to do with his life when he got back. The same thing goes for the soldiers of the war in Afghanistan they see so much that traumatizes them that they do not know how to act when they are around their families.

Crime And Punishment By Fyodor Dostoevsky - 1488 Words

In the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, many of the characters serve as microcosms to the larger story as a whole. The negative portrayal of certain characters suggests that the consequences of living a self-serving and egocentric life are unavoidable, and that they all must compensate for their wrongs. Conversely, the characterization of the more selfless and altruistic characters, suggests that a life filled with positive actions is the noblest lifestyle and will be reciprocated by positive events in their own lives. A few characters are depicted more negatively through their actions and self-serving motives, that even bring down others in the process. Some depictions of selfishness are subtle, such as Maremeladov, but†¦show more content†¦While the institution of marriage is often considered to be a partnership, for Luzhin it is only another way to heighten his reputation and fulfill self-serving desires. Anya Ivanonva is also characterized negatively, through extensive bestial imagery showing how she prays on the poor to monetarily profit. Depicted as â€Å"a louse†¦wearing out the lives of others†, her livelihood is based solely on self-serving transactions with those who need help the most. This grimy and animalistic description shows how she is stuck on a primal level where her only focus is to benefit her own interests; greedy and sinful, she is never content. Svidrigailov is also a character who is transparently characterized as grotesque and sinful. Accused of poisoni ng his wife to escape the constraints of his marriage, raping a mute 15 year old without remorse, attempting to blackmail Dounia into marriage and then attempt to rape her, it is clear that he acts entirely to fulfill his own pleasures and desires. Even when Svidrigailov commits what app ears to be more altruistic acts, the underlying motive is to win over Dounia, accomplishing further self-gratification. On the subtler side, Marmeladov is a more lovable character,