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Month: April 2019

My Father’s BrainThinking About Memory Problems When Memory is a Problem

My Father’s Brain
Thinking About Memory Problems When Memory is a Problem

What These Works Say

According to the art: Franzen looks back to describe his father’s experience with progressive dementia, while worrying that his memories may be unreliable––yielding a literary meta-analysis of failing memory through inherent memory failings. He thus questions whether memory loss with age is more natural than pathological.

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The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

What These Works Say

According to the art: Through his main character, Mosley imagines what it could be like to experience dementia, and also to have a sense that you are experiencing it. He also challenges us to think about how dementia should be treated and about access to experimental drugs without regulatory oversight.

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AmourLove and Immutable Boundaries

Amour
Love and Immutable Boundaries

What These Works Say

According to the art: This movie asks viewers to consider the boundaries of love (amour), or even if there are any when it comes to ending the suffering of a deeply loved spouse.

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The Sick Child

The Sick Child

What These Works Say

According to the art: The Norwegian, expressionist painter Edvard Munch saw a lot of illness and death in his family. In this painting, he shows us a moment preceding the death of his sister while she is attended to by a distraught aunt. He may also be showing us his sister consoling their aunt.

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So Much For That

So Much For That

What These Works Say

According to the art: At its core, this novel is about money and health care, and in particular about whether money should ever be an object in health care decisions for patients. Running through the novel is a theme of illness as loss, as it takes different forms: financial loss, loss of control, loss of self, loss of relationships, and loss of meaning.

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Pale Horse Pale Rider: From One Title, Two Perspectives on the Effects of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic

Pale Horse Pale Rider:
From One Title, Two Perspectives on the Effects of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic

What I and Others Say

According to the art: Two written genres are used to conjoin the impact of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic on populations with the impact on individuals. A nonfiction account is used to document the catastrophic effects of the pandemic on populations, and a literary short novel is used to render the catastrophic effects of the flu on an individual. Both are called Pale Horse, Pale Rider to reflect the biblical scale of the effects of this flu on individuals and populations.

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Dementia Experience:The Biomedical and The Literary (Harvey)

Dementia Experience:
The Biomedical and The Literary (Harvey)

Projects So That I Can Say More

According to the art: Here are excerpts from the novel The Wilderness that extend or elaborate on classic biomedical explanations of what people experience with dementia.

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I Am, I Am, I Am

I Am, I Am, I Am

What These Works Say

According to the art: The book is a memoir based on seventeen near-death events involving the author, and in a few instances, her children. Though the events make for harrowing and interesting tales, they are written such that they also convey what it’s like to nearly die from different acute illnesses, accidents, violence, and bad judgment. Collectively, the stories show the availability of human resilience in the face of repeated threats to life.

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Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

What These Works Say

According to the art: In this literary memoir of his opium addiction, Thomas De Quincey writes of the pleasures and pains opium brought him over an eighteen–year period during the early 1800s. His experiences foretell journalistic accounts of the opioid addiction crises that occurred two hundred years later.

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Parkinson’s Disease and Dopamine Balance:The Biomedical and The Poetic (O’Siadhail)

Parkinson’s Disease and
Dopamine Balance:
The Biomedical and The Poetic (O’Siadhail)

Projects So That I Can Say More

According to the art: Here is a comparison of a biomedical and a poetic explanation of the complicated biochemistry and pharmacology of Parkinson’s disease treatment with dopamine or its mimics. The biomedical text comes from a scientific journal, and the poetic text comes from two sonnets from a collection written by Micheal O’Siadhail about the last two years of his late wife’s experience with the disease.

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