Sara Davidson: Pleasant Dementia and Inner Peace | Newsweek Health for Life | Newsweek.com.
I read this article in Newsweek today. It was very interesting, and somewhat uplifting in a strange way. Sara Davidson chronicles her mother’s slide into dementia. Her mother turns into a very pleasant, in-the-moment type of person, with little anger towards her lack of memory.
“Pleasant Dementia” doesn’t turn up any articles in a very quick pubmed search, but this term has apparently generated a lot of interest since the Newsweek article went online. In the article, it is suggested that damage to the frontal lobes or the left hemisphere of the brain may cause this phenomena. Many people commenting on the story suggest that a frontal lobotomy may make dementia “easier” to accept…An interesting idea, but perhaps a bit hasty. I am curious to see if any researchers pick-up this line of research to delve deeper into why some people become “pleasantly” demented while most become angry and difficult to work with.
September 25, 2008 at 1:33 pm
This was indeed a very interesting article. I am not a neurologist or even remotely connected to the medical world. My take on damage to the frontal lobe is very different. My mother was diagnosed of a benign brain tumor a week before it was surgically removed. The tumor was the size of a golf ball and the doctors easily estimated that it might have been growing steadily for 20-25 years. It did damage her frontal lobe, slowly and steadily. For much of her life she remained very intelligent and normal human being. But when I look back, one thing stand outs. She remembered all the lousy parts of her life, in a very magnified way. In her later years, she suffered dementia but if I may, I would call it unpleasant dementia. I believe the medical world knows very little about the brain. What we remember has so much to do with our personality, people around us and what we expect from life.
September 25, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Thanks for your reply! It is good to hear from all sides of the story. I’m sorry to hear about your mother and, unfortunately, you are right: The medical world still has a lot to learn and I think it will serve us all well to remember that!
February 9, 2012 at 8:03 am
Ricky Martin…
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