Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer Disease is a neurological disease that affects the brain and causes memory-loss as the disease progresses, it eventually leads to death. It was first described by a german psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer in 1906, as he tried to understand the cause of the disease. Until today nobody really knows how the disease is caused, and there is no cure for AD, only drugs that could slower the process of the disease. The disease starts off by affecting the Hippocampus, which is essential for forming memory and keeping the LTS active. As more neurons die in the brain, affected parts of the brain start to shrink. Abnormal proteins start to form, which are called amyloid and tau proteins, that tangle throughout the brain, replacing neurons and keeping them inactive. AD can cause language problems, memory loss and unpredictable behavior. In the BBC Movie about Alzheimer, filmed different AD affected patients that suffer from the disease over years. It shows how cruel the disease can be as it progresses. People that were affected with AD in the movie, denied the fact that they had the diseases inside them, and are afraid of the truth. Many Psychologist call it an Epidemic, an outspread disease that could affect anyone. Alzheimer usually occurs in most cases at the age of 65 and could last a decade or longer, until most of the cognitive memory is affected by it.

Here are the stages of AD as it progresses:

Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

(Source: NNDB, "Alzheimer", nd, web. October 10. 2011)

As Alzheimer’s disease progresses, memory loss worsens, and changes in other cognitive abilities are evident. Problems can include, for example, getting lost, trouble handling money and paying bills, repeating questions, taking longer to complete normal daily tasks, using poor judgment, and having some mood and personality changes. People often are diagnosed in this stage.

Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease

(Source: NNDB, "Alzheimer", nd, web. October 10. 2011)

In this stage, damage occurs in areas of the brain that control language, reasoning, sensory processing, and conscious thought. Memory loss and confusion grow worse, and people begin to have problems recognizing family and friends. They may be unable to learn new things, carry out tasks that involve multiple steps (such as getting dressed), or cope with new situations. They may have hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia, and may behave impulsively. 

Severe Alzheimer’s Disease

(Source: NNDB, "Alzheimer", nd, web. October 10. 2011)

By the final stage, plaques and tangles have spread throughout the brain, and brain tissue has shrunk significantly. People with severe Alzheimer’s cannot communicate and are completely dependent on others for their care. Near the end, the person may be in bed most or all of the time as the body shuts down. 

Schema Theory

Sigmund Freud was an austrian psychologist and the first one to use psychoanalysis, a method of investigating someones mind and the way one thinks. It is because of that we now understand the human behavior more and allowed many other psychologist to develop different psychological experiments. The Schema Theory or the schema is the system for understanding of how knowledge is represented and being used.
Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett was a british psychologist and specialized his work on cognitive psychology, especially remembering. One of his most famous experiment that he performed was in 1932, when he asked a couple of volunteers to read the story of "The War of Ghosts." The aim of this experiment was to investigate the way that memory stores meaningful information. The people who were part of the experiment were asked to recall the story repeatedly at different time time intervals.
Another famous psychologist is Elizabeth Loftus, who focused her main studies on how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness's account of an event. In her "Loftus and Palmer" experiment in 1974, people had to watch a short clip of a car cash and than take a test were she would ask random questions about the incident. 5 out of 6 of these questions are irrelevant, but the most important question was "About how fast were the cars going when they (hit, smashed, bumped, collided, contacted)?" The wording of this question at the end, determined the results of the test and most people scored differently on the test. The estimated speed was affected the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, systematically affected the participant's memory of the accident.
At last I want to address the Ronald Cotton case, were an innocent teenager was accused for raping a girl, that studied the face features and voice of the person who committed the crime. He was sentenced to jail over forty years and with the help of DNA testing, he could prove his innocence. This shows that we shouldn't always trust our memory to be a reliable source of evidence, since it is very easy to manipulate our memories.

False Memory

What we see, smell or hear are senses that transmit information into our brain and stores it for a very long time. Therefore memory was long thought to be reliable and there would be no better evidence than eyewitnesses that saw the crime. By studying how memory works and what factors influence what we remember, we can prove that the memory is like a software, that is easy to manipulate.
A good example would be the case of Ronald Cotton who was accused of raping Jennifer Thompson and sentenced to jail innocent for plus forty five years. During the crime, Jennifer Thompson was focusing on memorizing details of his facial structure, his voice, height and other physical features, that helped her identifying the rapist on a photo line-up. However to make sure Ronald Cotton was the right guy she made a composite sketch before she identified him. This shows that our memory is easy deceived and that it is not the most reliable source for evidence. Eyewitnesses have a hard time if the person who committed the crime is not in the line up. Our human mind analysis and chooses therefore the person that looks similar. Elizabeth Loftus a famous psycholgist spent decades studying the human mind. In her famous "Car Crash" study shows how easy memories are influenced by different things. Eyewitnesses should be still used on a court trial, because it is still an important evidence, but shouldn't be totally relied on since what we already know, memories aren't the best evidence to give.