ipl-logo

Encephalitis In Awakenings

944 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Neurotransmitters biological psychology eppp

In this movie, I can’t help but feel really happy for Leonard. If I had to “wake up” realizing I just lost thirty years of my life, I would be extremely grateful just to have the chance to live like a normal human being again. Unlike some of the others around him, he went out and tried his best to enjoy life as he then discovered it to be. Personally, if I were in his position, waking up would be the most liberating experience of my life. Leonard was in a mental institution with doctors that primarily gave up on him, or seemed to have no interest at all. Doctors didn’t really want to cure him, or treat his symptoms. They just let him, and all the others like him, lie there and make sure he was still breathing. So their diagnosis? Encephalitis …show more content…

In Awakenings, most of these patients were survivors of the epidemic, showing signs of multiple diseases. Encephalitis is discussed as being the inflammation of the brain; not the outer layering of the brain, called meningitis, but the brain itself (Davis, 1). With all that inflammation, it would be easy to analyze and see that those neurotransmitters would have a hard time doing their job, and getting the brain to send those signals to the rest of the body in order to function. No wonder symptoms of encephalitis such as stiffness in the body, confusion, memory loss, paralysis, and lack of responsiveness are complications (Davis, 4). Encephalitis is believed to be viral, and can come from simple things such as herpes simplex, also known as HSV (Davis, 2). Therefore, since some of those doctors believed that is the condition Leonard had, it shouldn’t take much to believe that Leonard would never wake up in the first …show more content…

It’s not just all things related to happiness. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, and “dopamine is signaling feedback for predicted rewards” (Brookshire, 1). Dopamine isn’t just pleasure or motivation and influence, it’s a vast concept that is still being studied. It’s a chemical released in one’s brain. It’s sex, it’s addiction, it’s love, lust, etc. It’s all of the above. It’s simple and difficult at the same time. It’s familiar but known. But what we do know as people, is that we tend to feel free because of such a chemical. Parkinson’s has a whole lot to do with dopamine. When there is no dopamine, there is almost nothing. there are some motor reflexes, which explains why all the patients in the movie were able to catch a ball, but not able to seat themselves or eat their own meals. As parkinson’s disease progresses, the amount of dopamine produced in the body decreases, leaving the body unable to move at will and in a catastrophic state. It’s logical to assume that what was also related to the problem in the movie was the very problem of Parkinson’s...lack of

Show More
Related
499 Words | 2 Pages

He tried to cure several other patients but it never worked. The doctor himself believes it was because he knew it was incurable then. In addition the documentary also mentions a lady, with hips so deform, that she is not able to walk, she is a devout catholic and therefore she travels to Lourdes, on pilgrimage to be healed, this unfortunately does not work, but there has been cases where people where cured in Lourdes, this accompanies the theory that it is only one third of people who responds positively to

Read More
671 Words | 3 Pages

Every day, three times a day, they would give him pills; all of which he took, and then he eluded actually swallowing them by making a quick pass to the restroom, where he spat them out. He noted that many of the other patients also did this. It is very likely that a lot of the other patients were in fact normal also, but because of the previous diagnosis that the doctors gave them, they were unable to

Read More
1101 Words | 5 Pages

Almost instantly it seems that he goes from wanting to be a pilot in the military to being completely reliant on other people to care for him while in a nursing home. At the time, doctors and researchers were baffled by the boy’s symptoms because, after performing many routine tests, nothing was out of normal. The doctors knew that the illness the boy was battling was nothing like they had seen before, but they suspected he had Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. However, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease was only thought to be “an illness of people in their sixties” (12). Next, the author explains how Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease was found, and he also goes on to tell that the 19 year old boy’s illness has many differences when compared to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Read More
160 Words | 1 Pages

In his article "In Pursuit of Happiness: Better Living from Plato to Prozac," Mark Kingwell describes how there has been many debates on the meaning of happiness for many years yet still a singular, justifiable definition eludes society. The pursuit to define and understand happiness has invited several debates, questions, arguments, and suggestions alike. In 1996, a hand full of genetic and behavioral studies suggest evidence that one’s achievable degree of happiness is genetically decided, with evidences showing that no achievement will change your happiness, you are either happy or you’re not. Some studies demonstrated a correlation between dopamine levels in the brain and expressions of personal satisfaction, while others indicated that

Read More
556 Words | 3 Pages

He was a known heroin user and was in and out of treatment. You were able to see the track marks in both of his arms. His skin was cyanotic, pale and clammy, along with pinpoint pupils. The ALS provider struggled to get an IV due to the long term drug abuse, so his veins were not adequate. Also, there wasn 't a clear report on when the patient was last seen at his baseline and responsive.

Read More
597 Words | 3 Pages

Several common viruses can cause encephalitis: Measles, Polio, Rubella, Varicella, Rabies, and Mumps (Encephalitis, 2012). The emotional changes of Encephalitis are changes in self concept, anxiety, frustration and anger, emotional lability, perception of emotions, and depression, commonly found in the afflicted girls (Dewar B, 2014). Therefore, making the parallels between the afflicted girls and the victims of Encephalitis clearly

Read More
1764 Words | 8 Pages

It can occur to someone that has no history in their family. It is rare order that more than one person in the family is diagnosis with this syndrome. When paitents have a bacterial or viral infection may be more likely to develop GBS, however, only a very small percentage of people who have this infection are likely to develop Guillain-Barré syndrome. In order for the immune system to fight the infection, specialized immune cells have to produce proteins called antibodies, which are able to recognize specific proteins or molecules within the bacteria or virus. Some research shows that antibodies that recognize molecules on some pathogens may also recognize proteins on the body’s own nerves.

Read More
1124 Words | 5 Pages

Encephalitis

Read More
773 Words | 4 Pages

According to The National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke (2007), “Encephalitis lethargica is a disease characterized by high fever, headache, double vision, delayed physical and mental response, and lethargy. In acute cases, patients may enter coma and behavioral changes including psychosis. The cause of encephalitis lethargica is unknown.” Technically a patient suffering from this is bound to be experiencing the difficulties as stated above. Given the fact that the causative agent of this is still unknown gives almost no justification to the origins of the disease.

Read More
1065 Words | 5 Pages

Without his knowledge of medicine

Read More
549 Words | 3 Pages

When a person falls in love or gets addicted to drugs, their bodies behave in the same way. The warm and cozy feeling of being in love floods the brain with chemicals and hormones that produce feelings of pleasure, obsession and attachment. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet did not just fall in love with Romeo. Lovers also feel a rush of exhilaration when thinking about him or her; it is a form of “intoxication.” Both love and addiction engage the same regions of the brain, the “rewards system.”

Read More
843 Words | 4 Pages

Doctors at Wentworth-Douglass had no clue what was wrong with him, and what he was sick with. The doctors consulted with Mass General, Maine Medical, and Dartmouth while he was still at Wentworth on a respirator. They gave him four spinal taps to find out a solid diagnosis. After testing him for many diseases they learned it was Guillain-Barre. After lengthy physical and respiratory therapy, he had to re-learn how to walk, talk, write, breathe, and many other things we take for granted daily.

Read More
813 Words | 4 Pages

The disease killed a lot of people and most people that had been affected with the disease had cause them to be paralyze or went to sleep for a long period of time. Dr. Seyer in the movie had become motivated because of what he had observe when he started working at the hospital. In one of the causes that Buckley had mention in the article, “– two are even known to have poked out their own eyes and pulled out all their teeth. The survivors eventually became immobilized and catatonic, with very little

Read More
970 Words | 4 Pages

He was airlifted to a neurosurgical trauma center at Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. There was pressure on the skull and presents of brain swelling and a subdural hematoma, this is a collection of blood build up in the brain. He was in the hospital for 98 das, and suffered many other major problems related to his brain injury. He had softening of certain affected areas in the brain, low blood pressure, kidney failure, pneumonia, the dangerous infection sepsis, temporary cardiac arrest and an inability to walk and talk. Years later, he has regained most of his speech but still has some cognitive problems and uses a wheelchair to get

Read More
577 Words | 3 Pages

His parents mildly attempted to find treatment, but they were not as serious about the topic as they should have been. This lack of seriousness is heavily related to the lack of awareness of the severity of these types of

Read More

More about Encephalitis In Awakenings

Related Topics

Open Document