Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 20/12/2014 11:30:01
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"karlien.duarte asked the Naked Scientists:
Do Alzheimer patients have a sense of consciousness?
Regards
Karlien
What do you think?
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Alzheimer patients have autonoetic consciousness impairment. Autonoetic consciousness is important cognitive ability for episodic memory and implicit self-awareness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonoetic_consciousness
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22596082
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What I found, in my own observations with Alzheimer's patients, these people are aware, but they often can't think of the words and sentences needed to express what they are thinking. When they attempt to talk or convey meaning it can make no sense or appear to go off the reservation. This is not incoherency, but is analogous to going to a foreign country, where you don't know the language, but try to communicate. You may know a few words, which not be enough key words for the occasion. This will make you sound like a lovable moron, to even a child who knows the language. This lack of language skill does not mean you can't think or are unconscious. This may appear to be so, if all you have are third hand data, which is common to the sciences of the mind. On the other hand, if you spend time with that person, to know their habits, then you realize the words get in the way of the person hidden below. You are able to fill in the words and you can see their eyes light up.
I know an old woman who has Alzheimer's. In my observations, she appears most coherent in her own home, compared to anywhere else I see her. The reason is, in her own home, all her lifetime collection of objects, are acting like an external hard drive. Alzheimer's patients suffer from loss of short term memory. Her external hard drive of personal possessions, which are part of her more useful long term memory, supplement her short term memory, so she is able to speak through the past.
Unfortunately, many such patients are removed from their homes and placed in care facilities, where there is no long term history of things, to act as an external hard drive for short term memory, via long term memory. With the short term memory not working, they end up behind a veiled curtain, in a foreign land. Many stop trying to communicate.