Tag: dementia
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A portrait of dementia
Lindsay RipleyDallas, Texas, United States A few months ago, I watched The Father, a film with Olivia Colman in a main role and Anthony Hopkins as the titular father. Hopkins plays Anthony, a character who bears Hopkins’ own name because writer and director Florian Zeller wrote the part imagining Hopkins in it. Like Hopkins, now…
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Eugen Bleuler and schizophrenia
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Eugen Bleuler, 1900. from: G. Wehr, Jung, ed. René Coeckelberghs, Collection Les Grands Suisses, ISBN=2-8310-0009-2. Clinique du Burghölzli. Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) (Fig 1) was one of the most influential psychiatrists of his time, best known today for his introduction of the term schizophrenia to…
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Alzheimer and his disease
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Alois Alzheimer. 1915 or earlier. From Wikimedia “Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo (powerfully in deed, gently in manner).” — Franz Nissl’s description of Alzheimer (1916) Curiously, until the 1970s the high prevalence Alzheimer’s disease was not recognized as the most common cause of dementia.1 Most demented…
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The loneliness of the long-living doctor
Peter Arnold Sydney, Australia Study of the head of an old man. Peter Paul Rubens. between 1610 and 1615. Kunsthistorisches Museum. Via Wikimedia. A noticeable phenomenon of the twenty-first century is the increasing frequency of friendships between older men. The importance of such friendships to both mental and physical health has been well documented.1,2,3…
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Can behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia salvage Semmelweis?
Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Ignaz Semmelweis. 1818 – 1865. Age 47 years at death. Via Wikimedia. Remember me for the mind I had; not the mind a disease created. Few physicians have made a more significant observation than did Ignaz Semmelweis.1 In 1847 he took over two…
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Great expectations
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece Summer Calm—image by the author “Doctor, I want you to treat her as a forty-year old!” What is the appropriate answer to a demand like that from a daughter about the treatment of her eighty-eight-year-old mother? Any suggestion that her mother might not do well even with the best treatment…
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A dog like that
Rebecca Osborn New Haven, Connecticut, United States An Old Man with a Dog. Giacomo Ceruti. 1740s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “You ever seen a dog like that?” I smile and shake my head. Tony sips his black coffee, his eyes lingering on the open doorway. “What a dog. What a beautiful dog. Most…
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Good patient, good doctor
Lealani Mae Acosta Nashville, Tennessee, United States Illustration by Lealani Mae Y. Acosta What makes a “good” patient? What makes a “good” doctor? I am a cognitive behavioral neurologist who specializes in dementia. I relish the longitudinal relationship I have with patients and appreciate hearing them say with pride, “Dr. Acosta is MY doctor.” Being someone’s…