Alzheimer’s is a disease produced by cognitive deterioration as a consequence of the accumulation of a kind of “brain junk” that leads the sufferer to an alteration of memory and complete recognition of much of their experience. These patients begin to respond and act like small children with simple responses and stereotyped behaviors in the face of problems, and the disease progresses until they become out of control and lose their capacity for orientation and self-awareness.
Alzheimer’s attacks one’s own self-awareness. Pain requires intellectual, emotional, social processing, unlike other perceptions. But at this point we ask ourselves the following question: what is pain without consciousness? A simple nociception, something that differentiates us from other human beings. We speak of the person in the past tense when a person loses brain capacity and has no electroencephalographic response.
So, is it the consciousness itself that gives us the condition of human beings? This is a complex and difficult question to answer, since the human condition depends, among other things, not only on individual but also on collective consciousness.
The living death of Alzheimer’s and other dementias almost always produces much more pain in the people who shared life with the patient than in themselves. The pain of Alzheimer’s is often reflected in the helplessness to understand a disease that erases the identity and history in common with loved ones.
These and other diseases need attention and support from the authorities, especially in cases where it is impossible for spouses, elderly people with very tight pensions, to cope. Unfortunately, yes, Alzheimer’s causes a lot of pain, which falls, above all, on the family members and acquaintances of the sufferer.