“Can’t seem to keep my mind to it”: did Arthur Miller’s Salesman have dementia with Lewy bodies?

Fearon, C; Taylor, J-P; O'Dowd, S

doi:10.1007/s00415-019-09343-8

“Can’t seem to keep my mind to it”: did Arthur Miller’s Salesman have dementia with Lewy bodies?

Lookup NU author(s): Professor John-Paul Taylor, Dr Sean O'Dowd

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Abstract

© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. We present evidence that Willy Loman, the protagonist of Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman”, meets current diagnostic criteria for probable dementia with Lewy bodies. In particular, he presents with attentional deficits and executive dysfunction (with additional subtle visuoperceptual deficits) in addition to dramatic fluctuations in attention and vivid visual hallucinations. Dementia with Lewy bodies is the second most common neurodegenerative dementia. However, it is frequently misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed, even—we contest—in one of the most well-known characters in modern literature.