11:56pm July 4, 2013

“The ‘unique case’ may be a nightmare for science, but is a necessity for medicine, where it is not just a question of quantities and systems, not just a question of applied physiology, but a question of individual economies and needs. I like to think that Awakenings has had some influence…in drawing attention…to the current humane movement from an assembly-line to a personal medicine.”

Oliver Sacks, Awakenings 1983 edition, p. 35

I want to send oliver sacks a megaphone so he can yell this at all of the doctors. all of them. this was written almost 35 years ago and western medicine is still ruled by mnemonics and stereotypes and “you shouldn’t be malfunctioning in this way" no matter how many times a given patient retells their trajectory.

I’ve never read the book. But autism-related movement disorders are in the same family and I’ve been able to explain things to people using the movie. (And I could guess accurately why everyone was doing certain things in the movie because I have similar issues just not as bad - like when she couldn’t walk past a change in floor pattern and nobody knew why, this is why I couldn’t easily get to the fridge in my last apartment).

Also while I don’t always like his writing, got to talk to Oliver Sacks in person and he instantly understood all my strategies to help myself move, because his patients with movement disorders do the same things. Was really cool.

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