...PAPER ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: NOT JUST A LOSS OF MEMORY Prepared by: XXXXXXXXX (matric no.) XXXXXXXXX (matric no.) Group XXX Prepared for: XXXXXXXXXXXX Date of Submission: July 2011 Introduction Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative brain disease, is the most common cause of dementia. It currently afflicts about 4 million Americans and is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Furthermore, Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of mental impairment in elderly people and accounts for a large percentage of admissions to assisted living homes, nursing homes, and other long-term care facilities. Psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, have been reported in a large proportion of patients with this disease. In fact, it is the presence of these psychotic symptoms can lead to early institutionalization (Bassiony, et al, 2000). Learning about Alzheimer’s disease and realizing that it is much more that just a loss of memory can benefit the families of those with the disorder as well as society as a whole. This paper is to look at the disorder, as well as to discuss the history, symptoms, diagnosis, current researches and hopes of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. History Around the turn of the century, two kinds of dementia were defined by Emil Kraepin: senile and presenile. The presenile form was described more in detail by Alois Alzheimer as a progressive deterioration of intellect, memory and orientation. As a neuropathologist...
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...Memory Psy105 The definition of memory is: the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences (Dictionary.com). There are three different types of memory Sensory, Short-Term and Long-Term memory. Sensory memory is memory that is seen by the eye that the mind keeps as a referencing point for a short period of time. This type of memory gives the eye a larger field of view. The eye’s field of vision is actually very small, but sensory memory retains images that he eye has already seen. This type of memory retains this information for a short period of time that way the eye will remember things it has already seen and doesn't have to reprocess all new information every time it sees something in view. The next form of memory is Short-Term memory. This type of memory is also known as primary or active memory. Freud referred to this type of memory as the conscious mind; active memory goes along with sensory memory just taking it to the next step and retaining those same images for a longer period of time. Short term memory is like RAM in a computer. Now short term holds memories for longer than sensory memory, but does not hold it forever there is another type of memory just for long sustained memory. The type of memory that is sustained for a long period of time is referred to as Long Term memory. This type of memory is referred to as the unconscious by Freudian psychology. The...
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...Emotion, Imagery and Negative Feelings on Memory Retrieval My Memory Here I was, at the 2013 U.S. Synchronized Figure Skating Championships, standing in the well-known “kiss and cry” area with my team. We just skated our second program of the competition, the long program, and it felt absolutely incredible. I remember completing each element and taking a deep breath of relief each time knowing we made it through another section of our program without a fall. Our team’s goal this season was a pewter medal, 4th place, and we were moments away from achieving it. The short program, which we skated the night before, was also incredible and it gave us close to a four point lead ahead of the team behind us. All we needed to do was get our scores and celebrate. I remember the image of the stands where our organization’s younger team and our parents stood, cheering and going crazy and waiting for our scores as well. Brooke and Alexis had those silly Shamu whale costumes on in honor of our music to a song from one of the SeaWorld shows. They started doing that silly Shamu hand signal and the rest of our cheering section did it too. I held the hands of two of my teammates, one of them my sister, tighter than I’ve held anything in my life. We stood there, anxious, staring at the screen hanging above the crowd, waiting and waiting for the announcer to come on and our scores to appear. They showed recaps of some of our best moves we performed just a few minutes ago and we stood there huddled...
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...Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I will argue to the claim about the minds inconsistency in making decisions and why do people tend to escape from their destined life, the emotions conquering our decisions that we are making, and so, also some thoughts and points that I would like to argue about the film. The First or rather striking part is that Joel who met Clementine at the Montauk. Draw from their different personalities they became lovers. And an argument follows which results or makes a life decision and that decision is to erase all of their memory about Clementine and as so Clementine did it before he has done it... In that case they have both tried to become strangers in a way of erasing their memories... Secondly is Joel’s dreaming part in the movie, or in which case is, the memory clearing part. It automatically strikes me as a viewer that Joel try to escape from the real situation, even if his memory is being cleared and even it is not possible to bring it back or to stop it, he still fought for his feelings, and I’ll be arguing also with the following topics... Thirdly is what happened to Joel and Clementine at the start and at the end of the said. At the first cycle is that it so happens that they had a bad relationship which resulted in to forgetting each other. And at the second cycle they’ve become strangers again and so finding out what they did in the first cycle. This resulted into correcting what they have done wrong in the past cycle. The...
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...study it. Instead, through the use of studying the behaviors and mental processes we can correlate that with the mind. Let me give you one example of something that is taught in class. Memory is an active system that receives, stores, and recovers information. In order for one to keep a memory for a longer length of time, the memory must pass through the sensory memory, short-term memory, and into the long-term memory. The sensory memory is only able to hold an exact copy of what you may see or hear but only for a couple of seconds. The information stored from a visual memory is called the iconic memory while information stored from hearing is called the echoic memory. However there is a lot of information when you see and hear things. Therefore we have something called selective attention that blocks out what we deem unimportant. An example would be when being in a concert the only thing you may remember is the band; however it would be fairly difficult if you were to try to remember the faces of everyone in the audience. Through selective attention we can filter out what we see and hear into the short-term memory. Short term memory is able to store a small amount of information. However if we do not utilize or rehearse the information, then it becomes lost forever. Example of a short-term memory may be a number to a telephone or a list...
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...The Man without a Memory Psych/575 January 27, 2013 The Man without a Memory Remembering is what a person understands; understanding is only what the person pay’s attention to, and individuals only pay attention to what they want to (Keeley, 1997). Memory brings so much to our lives; whether it's’ contributions are positive or negative. Our memories write, underwrite, and re-tell our lives’ journeys. But what happens when this very luxury or curse is robbed from us? What happens when what is recalled and remembered is chosen for us? After viewing Clive’s story in ‘The Man Without A Memory,’ we are reminded not to take the things we remember, choose to remember, and choose to forget for granted. Within this paper, the relationship between learning something and remembering it is described. The specific area of Clive’s brain that was damaged is revealed; Clive’s loss of memory for most things except his memory for his wife and the piano are explained. Memories we would miss the most are described, and how emotions are linked to memories are examined. Relationship between Learning and Remembering To explain the relationship between learning and remembering, I would start with learning information such as preparing for a test. The student can remember the material for the test, but does not retain the information after the test to remember the knowledge. If the student learns the information for the test, but then retains the material, the student will remember what...
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...Philosophy 100 Tu/Th 1-2:15 pm A Perfect Mind, Lost Without memory We are dependent on our memories. According to John Locke, memories give us personhood. In the movie Captain America Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers was a war hero that was frozen, then unfrozen decades later. Steve missed years of information and a lifetime of experiences. This surreal scenario portrays how hard it was for him to integrate into a new generation. This relates to John Locke’s view on memory; Steve does not feel like his normal self, because he was robbed of memories, which made the new generation seem very complicated and odd. What made things even worse, was that people still viewed him as the old “Captain America”. In this case, his friends still saw him as the same person physically, however, mentally he was not. He was physically the same, but his mind was confused and lost; thus showing that mind is separate from the body. His physical attributes did not lose a step, but he was mentally damaged. Captain America provides examples of people being immaterial souls. People are who they are and act in certain ways due to their mind, not their bodies. People live through their memories and experiences. People know what to do and when to do it because of their past and their consciousness telling them right from wrong. Captain America suffered because his mind was frozen; his body is only relevant, because his mind is stored in his body. The body is just a physical, lifeless corpse. That is the only reason...
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...was selected to be the Receiver of memory, everything changed. He came to know that his world hadn't always been the way it was. Things were different, there was diversity and there were variations. Jonas learns things that he would have never known. Some things were joyful, while other things were painful. But the most important thing is that Jonas and the Giver learned that they are more than capable to make a difference for difference. In the book The Giver by Lois...
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...can be counted as a personal identity or not? After reading the article, we can know the determination which is the existence of a person is judged on the memory which...
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...1. What is primary memory? What are the characteristics of primary memory? Primary memory is known in layman’s terms as short-term memory. Primary memory is where information is stored when it is first obtained. It (primary memory) is also a staging ground for thought (Willingham, 2007). Willingham (2007) also states that primary memory “both retrieves information from secondary memory and takes in information from the environment” (p. 144). According to Willingham (2007), it may do this “for temporary maintenance or possibly for entry into secondary memory” (p. 144). Primary memory also has many characteristics. One of these characteristics is proactive interference. Proactive interference is a characteristic involving forgetting. With proactive interference, prior learning interferes with current learning (Willingham, 2007). Along with proactive interference, comes retroactive interference. With retroactive interference, new learning interferes with prior learning (Willingham, 2007). As an example, Willingham (2007) uses learning French as interfering with learning Spanish. In other words; “You are likely to remember less French if you’ve just finished studying Spanish” (Willingham, 2007, p. 154). According to Willingham (2007), another characteristic of primary memory is that it can be coded in three ways; “visuospatially, acoustically (in terms of sound), and semantically (in terms of meaning)” (p. 155). Willingham (2007) also mentions a possible fourth way...
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...Memory Paper Lorena Vega PSY/211 April 4, 2011 Betsabe Salcido Memory is acquired over the years and is vital for our learning skills. Language becomes very natural when we already know what, when and how to say something. We form sentences, phrases, paragraphs by knowing what we are going to say before we say it. Most people believe that when we speak, it is without thought and is done unconsciously, but before we speak we need to plan it. In this paper I will explain the relationship between memory, language skills, motivation and the way they come together to affect the production of your short and long-term memory. Why is memory so hard to understand? The answer, in part, is that the term labels a great variety of phenomena. I remember how to play chess and how to drive a car; I remember the date of Descartes' death; I remember playing in the snow as a child; I remember the taste and the pleasure of this morning's coffee; I remember to feed the cat every night. “Many very different things happen when we remember” (Wittgenstein 1974) Language is important to the way we communicate. There are four steps in the process of going through the language skills. You must first learn to listen, then to speak, then to read, and finally to write. These four steps are called “language skills.” Experience has shown that written and oral communication must be practiced extensively to be mastered. It is something that takes practice until you are comfortable enough to...
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...it. However, memory has a use-it-or-lose-it quality: memories that are called up and used frequently are least likely to be forgotten. Although transience might seem like a sign of memory weakness, brain scientists regard it as beneficial because it clears the brain of unused memories, making way for newer, more useful ones. 2. Absentmindedness This type of forgetting occurs when you don’t pay close enough attention. You forget where you just put your pen because you didn’t focus on where you put it in the first place. You were thinking of something else (or, perhaps, nothing in particular), so your brain didn’t encode the information securely. Absentmindedness also involves forgetting to do something at a prescribed time, like taking your medicine or keeping an appointment. 3. Blocking Someone asks you a question and the answer is right on the tip of your tongue — you know that you know it, but you just can’t think of it. This is perhaps the most familiar example of blocking, the temporary inability to retrieve a memory. In many cases, the barrier is a memory similar to the one you’re looking for, and you retrieve the wrong one. This competing memory is so intrusive that you can’t think of the memory you want. Scientists think that memory blocks become more common with age and that they account for the trouble older people have remembering other people’s names. Research shows that people are able to retrieve about half of the blocked memories within just a minute. ...
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...course of a persons life. This theory came out in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, and has continually changed and been modified over the years. The information processing theory is a combination of three components; sensory register (memory), working memory, and long-term memory. The combination of these three components enables us as human beings to receive, think about, and process information. There is also one more component that is essential in the learning and memory process, this is called the central executive component. The central executive component is what you could refer to as the cognitive “supervisor”. Without this component a person's decision making skills and planning skills could be interfered with. Sensory register and working memory help in the beginning stages of memory, while long-term memory is just that. Long-term memory is used when storing information for long periods of time. During the study of the information processing theory is has been compared to a computer, seeing as how we “store” information and “retrieve” it from the memory. It could be said that sensory register (memory) and working memory are used to determine which pieces of information are needed to be stored in the long-term memory, and also where that information is...
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...Fearless and Falling Man In the movie Fearless, it narrated how Max Klein reacted in his life after he survived from a terrible air crash. Although Max had been able to survive in the crash and helped other passengers on the air to escape from the fired airplane, he was living under the shadow of the air crash. The terrible air crash brought Max both painful memories about the crash. In general, Max’s behavior is a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a kind of anxiety disorder. This kind of disorder is able to occur after someone has gone through a traumatic event involving injury or death. For example, it was hard for Max to walk out of the shadow of the air crash. That is, the memory about the crash belonging to Max was indelible. The fact drove Max’s memory simulated and indelible is the process his getting out of the plane. No matter when Max felt that he was not able to breathe and depress, he would love to rush to some wide space to get relaxed. For instance, when he was crowed by a lot of journalists to be asked to say something about the crash, he just rushed and kept running until he saw the sea. It just liked Max escaped from the plane that was a small space to a Bakersfield that was wide enough. For Max, it was a way out of the plane, and it was a method away from death. As I mentioned above, it was hard for Max to walk out of the shadow of the crash. Consequently, he needed some coping methods to help him to be psychologically healthy. He went to see...
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...25/09/10 In memory of the Infamous H.M “I don’t remember things,” Henry explained to the unfamiliar female interviewer. She seemed very curious about how he spends a typical day, and about what he had eaten for breakfast, but his efforts to summon the information from his mind were fruitless. He could easily answer her questions regarding his childhood and early adult years, but the indefinite expanse of time since then was bereft of memories. In fact, from moment to moment Henry feels almost as though he has just awakened from a deep sleep, with the fleeting remnants of a dream always just beyond his grasp. Each experience, dull or dramatic, evaporates from his memory within a few dozen heartbeats and leaves no trace. For over fifty years Henry has lived with anterograde amnesia, a form of profound memory loss which prevents new events from reaching his long-term memory. As a result his only memories are those he possessed prior to his amnesia, and the small window of moments immediately preceding the present. The amnesia frequently depicted in fiction is a very rare retrograde variety known as dissociative fugue, where one’s identity and all memories prior to the pivotal event are compromised. In contrast, anterograde amnesia does not deprive the sufferer of their identity, their past, or their skills; it merely prevents new memories from forming. As a consequence one’s final memories are frozen in perpetuity, often accompanied by a constant sensation that one has just awoken...
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