Oliver Sacks 'The Man Who Mistook His Hat For His Wife'

The Role of Memory in Dementia

Acquiring knowledge about how our brains function and all the different problems that it encounters within and between the many stages of life is becoming increasingly important. We are constantly striving to improve the life expectancy of man, meaning that researchers and scientists are working hard to explore and document the human body and what can happen to it. The brain, however, is still relatively mysterious. An increased lifespan means that complex diseases and syndromes that affect the brain have become common occurrences; so much, that we have defined an umbrella term for some of these diseases: dementia.

What exactly happens to someone who suffers from dementia? Currently, it is unclear what happens

Oliver Sacks, who authored the book “The Man Who Mistook His Hat For His Wife”, a compilation of case studies on peculiar patients he had received throughout his career as a doctor. Jimmie G., the featured individual in the study that is being analyzed in this essay, was a man who looked as if he was perfectly healthy; he was lively, had a sense of humour, and was “ridiculously witty” (Sacks, 19). He had breezed through all of the tests that Dr. Sacks conducted on him. The doctor was befuddled as to why this man had been admitted to his hospital. However, Sacks suddenly found that Jimmie’s memory stopped abruptly directly after World War II ended. He could not form any new memories, in addition to some brain damage caused by alcohol consumption; clear symptoms of what is called Korsakoff’s

on the effects of dementia on working memory. The study was based on a model by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974. The model consists three parts; the central executive, which “serves as a middleman” (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), and controls the flow of information for the two other systems; the visuospatial sketchpad, and the phonological loop. The visuospatial sketchpad is responsible for storing visual and spatial information, whereas the phonological loop stores verbal content. Kensinger found that when the victim is suffering from dementia, in this case, Alzheimer’s (which is a reduction in memory that gradually progresses), his “semantic memory is compromised” (Kensinger et al., 2004), which is the knowledge of words and actions. This results in the phonological loop being affected as well, because of the similar affiliation with words. This relates back to Jimmie G.’s case, where he had trouble remembering actions that he had done (e.g. the chess game), including instructions given to him by Dr.