click on strip to enlarge
In the third strip of The Musician's Mind graphic novel about Alzheimer's, Parker is back home in Chicago, being interviewed for a nationally broadcast public television program. He sticks to his favorite theme of truth and music.
The older I get, the less sure I am about a lot of things. I don't think this is true with Parker --at 54, he sees the world in black and white. Do you think this will change after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's?
He will lose the underlying truth, and the order, as he slips into dementia. He will perceive only chaos, which may have its own kind of beauty, but it's not logical or neat. It will be interesting to see if his tastes in music change as his perception does.
-Bert
http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com
Posted by: Bert Piedmont | August 17, 2011 at 11:28 AM
Hello, everyone is capable of changing themselves, no matter how strong their self-teaching. This is a theory, in practice it usually takes the help of others to support these types of radical changes in personality type, definitions of the world, and how it it is and ought to stay being. It's still an open question. He will probably struggle but if he finds some one(s) to support and enable him to adjust to his cognitive enviornment without the change destroying his sense of balance he can do.
since folks don't want share someone elses confusion and pain for a long, long time I'm betting that slowly he will come around learn how to use intellectual abilities to help him cope, understand, and ultimately prosper and still live with the symptoms of dementia. Of course he may also become of victim of his own rigid way of thinking and defining himself, in which case he will miserable and once the reality of his diagnosis settles in he may consider suicide as a rational alternative to the chaos he so fears, but in fact does not have to be. Stay tuned, I will
Posted by: Richard Taylor | August 18, 2011 at 05:37 PM