“Still Alice” by Lisa Genova and “My Stroke of Insight” by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor truly gives readers first-hand experience of how the minds of Alzheimer's patients and stroke survivors work. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay “Still Alice” follows the main character, Dr. Alice Howland, as she progresses through her early-onset Alzheimer's diagnosis . The story begins by describing Alice's normal daily life with her husband, her relationship with her children, and her role as a professor at Columbia. As the story unfolds, Alice slowly begins to forget little things here and there that she associates with post-menopausal symptoms. These moments of forgetting become more and more frequent and she consults a doctor where she takes tests and discovers that she carries the gene for early Alzheimer's disease. This comes as a big reality check for Alice and her family, as important decisions must be made. The author does a wonderful job using words to show what Alzheimer's feels like from Alice's perspective. When Lisa Genova begins replacing the characters' proper names with nouns like "woman" or "man", the reader can really begin to understand the seriousness of the illness. “My Stroke of Insight” does an incredible job of explaining the progression of a stroke in common vernacular without delving too deeply into the science. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who suffers a stroke and explains the deterioration of her brain throughout the event. Since Taylor is a neuroanatomist, she also included a more scientific section in this book for readers who want to learn more about the subject. These two books helped me empathize more with patients I may have in the future by recognizing the themes. of: loss of independence, frustration and future planning. As the two books listed above are quite different in terms of main points, there are a few themes that repeat throughout the two. One of the themes is the loss of independence. Alice and Jill are very used to operating independently. Alice is a distinguished professor of linguistics and Jill is an accomplished neuroanatomist. Although Alice had a more gradual onset and Jill's stroke was very sudden, both consequences led to a loss of autonomy, neither of which the women were happy about. Both Alice and Jill became dependent on others to get through their days. Alice began to rely on her husband and daughters to remind her of the things she needed to do that day. Her husband must have started leaving notes around the house when she considered going for a run without him: “John made her promise not to run without him. She had sworn not to and she was heartbroken. Of course, she might forget.” When Jill had her stroke, she knew she wouldn't be able to do the things she could do before. She compares herself to a baby when she says: "With my mind deprived of its ability to recall the memories and details of my previous life, it was clear to me that I was now like a baby born in a woman's body." adult. And oh yes, the brain wasn't working! She knew that from now on and during her recovery, her independence would be limited, like a baby. These two characters learnthat they would not be able to perform tasks that they would normally be able to do. Personally, I know that if I were in their shoes, I would also have a hard time losing my ability to be independent. I think Jill may have had an easier time accepting it simply because she is a neuroanatomist and therefore knows that loss of independence can only be temporary. Another theme that connects the two books is the feeling of frustration. Jill and Alice both became very frustrated and annoyed with themselves in parts of the book because they couldn't believe what was happening to them. With the loss of independence comes the frustration of not being able to do the things these two women were used to. Alice showed frustration when her husband wasn't always there 100% for her and she really needed him to be. “She assumed that wasn't very understanding. She's been getting angry a lot lately. Whether it was a symptom of the progression of her illness or a justified response, she couldn't say. She didn't want a treadmill. She wanted it. Maybe she shouldn't be so stubborn. Maybe she was committing suicide too. “Alice was frustrated because her husband would tell her to wait until he went for a run, but when her husband wasn't available to go for a run, that's when the anger would show. In "My Stroke of Insight", Jill becomes very frustrated with the concept of saving energy. She has to choose what she spends time doing during the day, otherwise she burns out. “I had to choose between physical and cognitive efforts because both exhausted me…Cognitively, I had difficulty understanding my existence. I still couldn't think in terms of the past or the future, so I spent a lot of mental energy trying to piece together my present moment. “It takes a lot of energy to recover from a stroke, as Dr. Bolte explains to us in this novel. Having to choose certain things to spend her energy on was frustrating for her, as she was used to being able to do a lot in a day. I can definitely understand how these two women would be frustrated with their situation, as it's not something they are used to. They are not used to this “new world” in which they find themselves trapped. This is all scary and new. The final theme I found present in both books is the idea of ​​futuristic thinking and planning. Once Alice becomes more aware of her condition, she develops a plan for herself. As sad as it was, Alice felt the need to do this for her future self. “She needed a plan that committed her to a suicide she had planned now. She needed to create a simple test that she could self-administer daily. "She creates a list of 5 questions to answer and if she has any problems with these, she will open a 'Butterfly' file on her computer and follow a set of instructions. The questions were answered each day. Towards the end of the story, Alice discovers that she cannot answer the questions she had written for herself and so she takes matters into her own hands. She did not want to be a burden to her family. Taylor made plans to motivate herself throughout recovery, being a neuroanatomist, she knew the long road ahead of her. Jill knew she was a burden at the time, but she strived every day. achieve this end goal of fully functioning independently She understood that for the time being, she would need help living on her own, so she asked her mother to move in..