Memory is the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences. In the movie The Notebook, Duke reads to an elderly women named Allie. They both live in an assisted care facility. Allie has a disease called dementia. Dementia is a severe impairment or loss of intellectual capacity and personality integration, due to the loss of or damage to neurons in the brain. Every day Duke reads about a love story between two characters, Allie and Noah, in hopes that someday Allie will remember that the love story was actually of their life together. After reading the story multiple times Allie remembers who she is, and remembers that Noah is actually Duke and they are married with children. Moments later Allie reverts back to having dementia and forgets everything that she had just remembered.
In the movie Allie has no problem talking, or doing things like eating or walking. While reading online i have read that people that have dementia cannot remember how to do everyday things, and can’t speak in clear sentences because they cannot remember what some words mean or how to put them into a sentence. Another point is that most dementia patients remember their past but only in short stages or forms. For examples they won’t be able to remember what they got for their birthday 2 years ago but they would be able to remember when their children were born, and who they were (not in severe patients). In the movie Allies personality changed throughout the movie, in the beginning she would talk to Duke but only some words. She grew to not talk with anyone, not even the care aid, and became depressed. Allie was in a care home because she couldn’t do things for herself, like cook- she might forget what she was doing and leave the stove on.
I gained a great deal of information about dementia, and how it could be hard to have it. Dementia is irreversible and causes you to forget who you are and who the people around you are. Since dementia is irreversible, living with it may leave you feeling depressed because you wouldn’t be able to remember who you were, and be confused about the people around you.
The emotional understanding i gained was pretty hard. I watched a few dementia videos on YouTube and saw how families and loved ones had to deal with having someone dear to them with this disease. They said that they would walk around their house dazed and confused. They couldn’t remember where they put their car keys or where they left their shoes. Little things they noticed but took for granted was one thing i found while watching the videos. Every person speaking of it said they didn’t think anything of it before because those little things can happen to anyone. Then eventually they found that, they started to lose things about themselves, like forgetting to brush their teeth, or remembering to eat. Soon they would slowly start to forget who they were as well as the people around them. Some symptoms of dementia is becoming irritable and depressed, which could explain why they get nervous or scared around people because they don’t remember who they were. Emotionally for the person who has dementia or any other mental disability it seems hard on the loved ones too. Eventually a dementia patient’s family and friends lose contact with them because they just forget who they were when they visited; just as Allie forgot who her children were, as well as Duke. The children of Noah and Allie tell their father, Noah, to go back home with them because their mother doesn’t remember who they were. Being forgotten can be hard, especially when they grew up with their mother and now she doesn’t remember all the memories they shared, and she can’t experience her grandchildren growing up.
