Monday, March 18, 2013

Replacing body parts? and brain augmentation

I have been reading a lot lately about how most parts of the body can be replaced in one way or another. One exception to this is the human brain. However, I was thinking there might be ways to augment brain function. For example, one way to look at computers of all kinds and smartphones and tablets would be Brain augmentation devices. If you start by looking at them in this way then designing devices to work in conjunction with human memories might make many aspects of Alzheimers and senile dementia things of the past. For example, a computer is patient, unfailingly so. So, for example, let's say a person with dementia or Alzheimers forgets who they are or where they are. A computer that say is build into their clothes that speaks might watch a person's behavior and suggest to the person who there are or ask them where they are going if they appear to be doing something or going somewhere odd. It also would be less embarrassing or scary for a person to find out from a non-judgemental or non-judging computer device built into their clothes or locked on their wrist than to be frightened by someone they don't recognize telling them things. So, I could see such devices as brain augmentation devices used in this way until a person is closer to death from the fatal diseases of senile dementia and Alzheimers.

Note: My mother had senile dementia and I had to deal with her slowly regressing down to about age 4 and then into a coma and then she was gone over about 10 years. It is very difficult to lose a parent in stages like this and maybe 50 totally different personalities in the process. If you are in this situation just remember life is for the living and anyone with senile dementia or Alzheimers  is slowly dying. This allows you to take care of your spouse and children and to let your parent go. Otherwise you may lose your sanity and life right along with them as many single people do around the world all the time. So, in order to survive my mother's slow changes until she didn't know who I or my son were I had to prioritize my wife and children otherwise I wouldn't have been around at the end of it either.

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