Alzheimer's Short Story Babysitting Helen

What do you know about Alzheimer's? Alzheimer's is a progressive disease that attacks the brain and affects all aspects of a person's life, it is fatal and made up mostly of memory loss and confusion symptoms, which increase as time goes by. My research on dementia has helped me broaden my understanding of the short story "Babysitting Helen". It taught me that Helen's symptoms, memory loss and confusion , trouble performing day-to-day tasks, and repeating of actions and words are normal for people with dementia or Alzheimer's.

In "Babysitting Helen", Helen has a hard time remembering who people are, and remembering stuff in general. For example, when Trish had asked Barb if Helen knew who she was, Barb replied, "I'm afraid Mom doesn't know who many people are any more" (Stinton 1 ). I was a little confused on why she

Similarly, Helen has a habit of repeating her self when the same thing that triggered it the first time happens again. In particular, the part of the story where Trish and Helen were watching TV and every time the mechanical pink rabbit starting marching across the screen beating a drum, Helen would repeat "Would you just look at that! Isn't that the darndest thing?" (2). Again, I was confused with the fact of what was going on in her head that just made her say that exact sentence over and over again, every time the pink rabbit popped up on the screen, and why she thought it was necessary to repeat what she said over again. Consequently, the article 'Alzheimer's Disease" states, that one symptom for behaver change in dementia/Alzheimer's victims is the reacting to something by repeating words and/or actions. Now, my understanding is Helen Isn't repeating herself just to be annoying or just to do it. In fact, she might not even know that she's repeating herself. Because she might not even know that she has Alzheimer's because there is currently no diagnosis for