I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this story. My mother-in-law has Alzheimer's disease for the last decade of her life. Her distress at not knowing where she was or who some of us were was heartbreaking. On the other hand, I'm not sure that she'd have been any less distressed had she suddenly become able to form new memories, like the protagonist in this story. The character's anger, after all, comes not simply from the loss of his memories, but from the other people's inability to accept that the now-lost memories made him the person that they knew. That is, that he was his accumulated experiences, not just his current likes, dislikes, opinions, favorite food, etc.
So, yes... but also...
Given this is a new procedure, they probably didn't know all the possible consequences.
I'd imagine that - as the test case - what they have learned about how to handle the human element will continue to improve the treatment.
-Adam
I think that I can clear this up a little. This might sound a little cold, but just keep in mind that I am clearing up the clinical trial process.
From the sound of it, this would be classified as a Phase II clinical trial. Normally with new treatments there are Phase I trials first. These are safety assessments normally performed in healthy volunteers, but since this seems to be a high-risk, life-saving treatment, they may have forgone the Phase I and combined it with Phase II (a Phase I/II trial).
A Phase I/II trial would be to mainly assess two endpoints:
1) Safety (are there adverse events or serious adverse events?)
2) Efficacy (How well the treatment performs at the dose/s it have been given)
So basically, the Dr.s will be assessing a number of point throughout the trial, as well as monitoring the patient for adverse events. Unfortunately, once a trial has begun, they are not allowed to change much in the methods without removing the patient from the trial completely (which they do usually in the case of serious adverse events or when a patient refuses treatment).
In other words, how this would hypothetically look in the end publication would be:
"The treatment was effective eliminating 70% of amyloid plaques in 80% of patients with end-stage Alzheimer's disease. 90% of patients had a restoration in memory capacity as shown by XY test, but long-term memories formed previous to treatment were not restored. 5 year mortality caused by complications from Alzheimer's disease was reduced to 5%. Adverse events included frustration, aggravation... we would suggest counseling or psychological treatment of the patient to reduce the severity of such events in patients with end-stage Alzheimer's disease..."
So basically, they would use this data to improve treatment. Furthermore, they would probably start Phase III trials (a trial designed to show that the treatment is more efficacious than what is already on the market) with a group of patients at the beginning of Alzheimer's onset as a preventive treatment (they even say that they are in the story).
But in the end, you always have the human element. Some people may not be grateful. But, in the state they are in, they cannot make the decision for themselves, and the relatives have to try the best that they can to make the right one.
Anyway, the story was well written. I usually get all nitpicky about the science in these types of sci-fi stories, but I have no complaints here.
Well done.