Identity in Memory: Ascertaining Consciousness beyond Dementia

Abstract

In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity. ~ Erik Erikson Identity formation comes in various definitions within psychology, neurobiology and spiritual worlds, but universally, it may be agreed that identity is a part of having a sense of self-awareness about who we are as individuals. As humans' feel, think, sense and experience life in their surroundings, memory deposits formulate. Some argue that it is our memories that define who we are, but what happens when memory is disrupted with a dementia, such as, Alzheimer's disease (AD)? As persons living with AD or a related dementia experience memory loss, too often, care providers tend to wane in recognizing the person as they treat the disease. Oftentimes, physicians, family, friends and society at large are inclined to talk around the person with the diagnosis as if they were not in the room, speaking directly to their counterpart. Even some with an early diagnosis of AD may take on the disease as their identity, as a 58 year old an accountant with Early Onset AD questioned, "Without my memories, who am I?" First discovered in 1906 by German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, Alois Alzheimer, he observed Aguste Deter, a patient of his from a Berlin insane asylum. Deter had rapid deteriorating memory loss and he was intrigued by her symptoms. When Deter died Alzheimer's was able to examine her brain under a microscope with a new staining technique and found the plaques (amyloid) and tangles (tau) proteins engulfed in her Brain (Little, 2002) [2]. Despite Detour's advances in dementia, she was able to still recognize parts of herself. In taking a closer look at the beginning case of Auguste Deter, when Alzheimer's first assessed her, she knew who she was.