Health Beyond the Blog: Alzheimer’s and “Still Alice”

Still Alice unveils the realities faced by dementia patients and their families

by Ananya Dash

Still Alice, an adaptation of Lisa Genova’s best-selling novel, is a poignant story of a woman living with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Dr. Alice Howland, a linguistics professor at Columbia University, finds herself fishing for the right words during a lecture and getting lost on her usual jogging route – at the young age of 50. Alice, played “hauntingly well” by Julianne Moore, quickly realizes that her brain is fuzzy and consults a doctor. She gets diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s that affects 5% of all patients before the age of 65. The film follows Alice’s journey as she struggles to hold onto her identity as a renowned professor and a capable human.

Still Alice humanizes the underrepresented experience of memory loss in patients living with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other forms of dementia. Alice’s experience with Alzheimer’s stems from the novel’s unique origin story. Genova, a neuroscientist herself, was on a quest to humanize her grandmother’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. One of the film’s directors, Richard Glatzer, then brings his personal experiences of living with ALS, a neurodegenerative disorder, in his film adaptation. Both Genova and Glatzer’s familiarity with cognitive decline translates through Howland’s struggle to accept herself. 

The story focuses on Alice’s life but also shows the battles her husband and three children face to care for her and themselves. Alice’s husband, a successful neuroscientist, is in a limbo when he is offered a promotion in a new city. One of their children undergoes genetic testing to learn that they will be a victim of early-onset Alzheimer’s too. The characters surrounding Alice show the contrast of how life progresses, often with guilt, for caregivers. Alice’s husband and two children cannot keep up with the disease and move on with their lives. One of Alice’s daughters, on the other hand, decides to return home, to become a caregiver to her mother.

When the audience encounters Alice in the beginning of the story, they already know about the tragedy that is going to come. At the same time, they cannot stop themselves from sympathizing with Alice’s story, which reminds them of the lived realities of many who suffer from Alzheimer’s.

Still Alice is available on bookshop.org and also streaming on Netflix.