The diseased brain and the failing mind : : dementia in science, medicine and literature of the long twentieth century / / Martina Zimmermann.

• Superior document: Explorations in science and literature
• VerfasserIn: Zimmermann, Martina (Researcher in health humanities),
• Place / Publishing House: London England : New York : Bloomsbury Academic,, 2020.; London : : Bloomsbury Publishing,, 2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Explorations in science and literature
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (285 pages)

"The Diseased Brain and the Failing Mind charts changing cultural understandings of dementia and alzheimer's disease in scientific and cultural texts across the 20th Century. Reading a range of texts from the US, UK, Europe and Japan, the book examines how the language of dementia - regarding the loss of identity, loss of agency, loss of self and life - is rooted in scientific discourse and expressed in popular and literary texts. Following changing scientific understandings of dementia, the book also demonstrates how cultural expressions of the experience and dementia have fed back into the way medical institutions have treated dementia patients"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Cover -- Half-title Page -- Dedication Page -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Series Preface -- 1 Introduction -- Alzheimer's disease: A twenty-first-century first-world scare -- Dementia in history -- Methodology: Literature and science -- Overview -- Part I The organic paradigm -- 2 From brain inspection to cell death -- The Forsyte Saga: The cultural image of dementia in the fin-de-siècle family novel -- Dementia and memory loss in science, medicine and literature before 1880 -- Auguste D. and Johann F.: Alzheimer's clinical cases and histological research

The case -- The discourse of degeneration -- The definition of the disease -- The reaction to the definition of the disease -- Degeneration: The old and new narrative of loss and decline in medico-scientific literature on dementia and Alzheimer's disease -- There Were No Windows: The patient's illness experience in the modernist novel -- Part II The ageing perspective -- 3 Culture shapes politics shapes science -- Researching old age: From medical science to old-age psychiatry -- At The Jerusalem: Dementia defines the elderly in 1960s new realist fiction

4 The loss of self in healthcare and cultural discourse -- Caregiver guides: Helpers in the face of loss and decline -- Out of Mind: The postmodern novel delves into the mind of the patient -- Part III The cognitive picture -- 5 The narrative of loss in a growing biomedical and literary marketplace of Alzheimer's disease -- Neurodegeneration: The biochemical narrative of lost molecules, pathways and communication -- On genes and genealogy: The patient as specimen, carrier and type in research and popular science

Death in Slow Motion: Past identities, lost plots and old age in caregiver life-writing -- 6 Neurotechnologies and narrative examine the failing mind -- The visual exploration of the brain and fascination with the mind -- The Dying of the Light: Detective fiction claims back patient authority -- Who Will I Be When I Die? Patient life-writing around the year 2000 -- Part IV The whole-person prospects -- 7 The dichotomy of Alzheimer's disease -- Immunization hope and hype: The patient as non-responder

La guardiana di Ulisse: The patient beyond forgetting in children's literature and adult fiction of the new century -- Alzheimer mon amour: Healthcare changes and patient personality in contemporary caregiver memoirs -- We Are Not Ourselves: The cultural image of Alzheimer's disease in the twenty-first-century bildungsroman -- 8 Conclusion -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index Page -- Copyright Page