Dementia refers to the loss of brain function and Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia. It normally attacks old people, but research shows that even the young and energetic can suffer from dementia. Though not totally clear, it is said to be caused by the genes and the environment. Alice Howland is a highly esteemed professor at Harvard University living comfortably with John Howland her husband and three children. The first signs of dementia start showing up when she can’t find her cell phone and she thinks this is normal as her husband normally misplaced his keys, then she becomes disoriented in her home town, and is baffled when she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages. We feel for Alice because how she …show more content…

She has plan B on how to check on herself and she writes herself a letter which she saves in her computer as butterfly but when the time comes when she needs the plan, she cannot even find it.
In another scene, at the early stages of the disease, she is still teaching at Harvard and hasn’t let a soul known of her condition, let alone her husband. She goes to work as usual and is surprised to find the halls unoccupied and no staff there. She however uses this as an opportunity to get her work done and after she is through, she goes home to rest. As she makes her tea, she looks out the window and realizes its pitch dark actually 4am in the morning and she sees a reflection of herself still in a night gown. Later on when the disease has really progressed ,she’s asked to give a lecture during an Alzheimer’s convention .She is so scared as she thinks that it could happen that in the middle she was going to forget how to read .she even prefers cancer to dementia.
Alice loses her sense of self. Alice is very aware that its not going to be easy but keeps on fighting to keep her head up and tiring to hold on to control with her two hands mustering all the force she can. She tells us in the last pages how she misses her family and being a part of it even as she uses her blackberry to check on her sanity every day, she becomes mixed up and cannot tell the answers from the questions ,are they right or wrong. Through her story we realize that she has to construct