Do neurosurgical procedures ever result in the patient prior to the procedure not being identical with the individual who wakes up postsurgery in the hospital bed? We address this question by offering an analysis of the persistence of persons that emphasizes narrative, rather than numerical, identity. We argue that a narrative analysis carries the advantage of highlighting what matters to patients in their ordinary lives, explaining the varying degrees of persistence of personal identity, and enhancing our understanding of patients' experiences. (...) We illustrate these points in cases involving temporal lobectomy for treatment of refractory epilepsy and deep brain stimulation for refractory Parkinson's disease. (shrink)

Beverly Beckham writes in the Boston Globe in praise of Lisa Genova’s Still Alice: “You have to get this book. … I couldn’t put it down. …” After I read Still Alice, a book of fiction about an accomplished Harvard professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, I too wanted to tell everyone to get this book, but not because “I couldn’t put it down.” The first time I read it, I put it down several times to cry. It was too painful (...) to read in one stretch. Years back, my mother, Gloria Baylis,1 had been diagnosed with vascular dementia, and recently there had been findings suggestive of an atypical presentation of Alzheimer’s disease. The story of Alice Howland, the Alice of Still Alice, was both too... (shrink)