Alzheimer's Disease In The Backward Fall

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Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually the ability to carry out everyday tasks. In “The Backward Fall”, this was what George's wife experienced. Her mental age started to gradually reverse backward to events that happened in her younger years, until her memory deteriorated back to an infant in the womb.

George and his wife were married for forty-seven years and throughout their time together, they experienced joy and some sorrow. As his wife’s alzheimer's progressed, she would relive these events, thinking they were just happening. One morning she accused George of stealing her ring. “I know you stole my ring, she says. Where is it? Her eyes are narrow but full of fire.” She called George a liar and a dirty old man as she stormed out of the house. He stepped across broken glass on the floor and ran after his wife afraid for what might happen to her on the street. She was unable to understand that this …show more content…
She asked her husband, and he told her the name of the song, “Picking Flowers in the Rain.” This was the first indication of her starting to forget. At the age of sixty-four, she asked George to get in the closet by the door. Then she forgot what she was saying. George started to get up until he saw the look on her face. “He hates that look, although he sees it so often it has become his old, evil friend. It is look of confusion, one of bewildered fear.” This showed that she was losing control of her brain function more frequently. When she was sixty-five and her mind was forty-eight, she asked George if he had filled up the tank. He questioned her. She recalled the memory of the Grand Canyon that happened over fifteen years ago. As time progressed, George’s wife forgot many things, only recalling few events that happened in the past. These are things that usually happen with alzheimer's

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