Why Alzheimer's is like Osteogenesis Imperfecta

Why Alzheimer's is like Osteogenesis Imperfecta

A few days ago, I read a phrase in a book. Not a very philosophical or intellectual one, but a rather easy read. Yet, I could not stop thinking about it. For the entire day, I found myself searching for a possible interpretation. Being able to truly understand the meaning of aforesaid phrase would allow me, to get a better look into the mind of the character, who uttered it.

 The phrase was: Memories are the bones of our soul.

The thing is that – somehow and somewhere between reading it for the second or eighth time -  there was this idea in my head: If memories really are the bones to our soul, then Alzheimer's must be the brain’s equivalent to the body’s brittle bone disease, also known as Osteogenesis Imperfecta! Comparing these two illnesses, one a physical and one a psychological, you can detect a very similar concept. What I mean by that is simply that the loss of memory for a normally functioning brain is like the diminishing strength of the bones for the body. Both are supporting and vital foundations without no human would be able to live a “normal” life.  I definitely am not a doctor, nor do I know enough to understand the full extent of those two diseases; However here I am philosophizing about such complex topics, only by stumbling across this strange metaphor, which at a first glance only appeared to me to be a cheesy filler where otherwise an unreasonable silence would have followed.

Without intention, I created an analogy to decode this seemingly harmless and flat semantic figure. Apart from my confusion in the beginning I have to admit that I very much enjoyed how this thought experiment turned out and I hope someone who read this did at least too.