Analysis: Frontotemporal Dementia

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I listened to both podcasts, but I found Unraveling Bolero to be much more interesting. This podcast talked about two people that were diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia. The first person affected was the Impressionist composer, Ravel, who was famous for his ‘flowery’ music. However, this changed when he composed his well-known piece “Bolero” that was basically just a repetition of the melody. Not a single note changes in his piece, but the orchestration does become more complex at the end. “Bolero” comes back again through Anne Adams. Anne Adams was a biologist who suddenly quit her profession after her son, Alex, was involved in a car accident. After she quit science, she had the great desire to paint, and paint she did. She painted houses, …show more content…

This disease creates holes that cause this part of the brain to whither and eventually die. This disease mostly affects the left side of the brain that’s in charge of many things such as memory, creativity, and language. Language is one of the most important regions it governs since language is in charge of turning on and off the other circuits of the brain so other regions can be ‘shushed’ so the brain mainly focuses on talking and understanding through language. However, if a person has Frontotemporal Dementia, language is damaged which in turn means the other regions aren’t silenced. Therefore, this leads to an overwhelming sensation to create any forms of art. The feeling is so intense that even people who had no art background become obsessed with art; a total one eighty of their personality takes place. This is what leads to the obsessive repetition that was present in Ravel and Anne Adams. They are obsessed because their basal ganglia have been altered to coexist with the desire to create and create and create repetitively. As chapter 3 mentions, the basal ganglia is what controls voluntary movements. It is often referred to as the “reptile brain” since it is in charge of the normal actions like eat, sleep, excrete, and repeat. However, if it is damaged and mixed with other parts of the brain, it starts to repeat the actions that were not ‘shushed’ since the …show more content…

I think it would be hard to transition from having control on your brain to total madness of everything happening at once to the point that you can’t even feel normal. I think the sufferers’ and their family’s life was greatly disrupted by the disease since it stays dormant for such a long time before it becomes active. It seems like one of the worst surprises to get. It is as if the universe pulled the rug under your feet so quickly, you forget where you are. You forget. I think that is the biggest problem for the victims of the disease. To gain some personal perspective on the effects of Frontotemporal Dementia, I played “Bolero” the whole time I typed this essay. I think I’m going mad. I can’t imagine just how difficult it is to have my life turn around so much to the point that I’m obsessed with repetition, and there is no way to escape it. The people with Frontotemporal Dementia cannot turn off their brain’s constant repetitions like I can turn off and stop the music. This shows that having the disease is extremely hard for everyone involved since the sufferer suffers alone, his or her family will never understand what is happening with the mind. The sufferer might even begin to feel depressed, if they even remember how, since they might feel alone with no one who understands them and what they have to do. So far, there is no going back from

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