in thoughts...

Remembered that I wanted to write about Bio Psych tutorial last Friday... Tutor/Lecturer actually bought popcorn to pass round the class while we were watching the 3 videos... haha... quite amusing... quite sweet of him... but it's quite weird to eat popcorn when you're watching "documentary-style" type of show...

we were shown 3 videos -
one about how L-Dopa and fetal tissue helped to reverse some Parkinson's symptoms shown by some young people as a result of them consuming poorly made "designer" drug...
second one was by the Movement Disorder Society... showing how an electrical "implant" in the brain of a man with Huntington's Chorea can help him control his movements - otherwise he'll be twitching badly, arms sometimes swinging out uncontrollably...
third video was a short part of "Awakenings" - actors include Robin Williams and Robert de Niro...

The second video was a bit disturbing for me... at first it was okie... they showed how the patient with Huntington's Chorea normally moves - rather uncontrollable movements, can't even hold a glass properly to drink from it without spilling most of the water - his hands will jerk violently even while he's trying hard to put it near his mouth... then they showed him after they turned on the device in his head to stimulate some receptor - he could walk almost normally, he could lift the glass and drink from it, he could touch his nose alternately with the index fingers of his left and right hand...

Then they turned one side of the device off - it's connected to both hemispheres, so when you turn the left side off, his right side goes back to twitching and wild swinging... and vice versa... and so he started showing the signs again on one side... then they turned that side on, and turned off the other side... and now the signs showed in the other side...

This kept on going for a while... It was to illustrate that it was really the device working to keep his movements normal and under control...

But it was disturbing to watch... at first when they turned on both sides I was quite amazed... then when they kept switching one side on the other side off and so on, I felt very disturbed... there was a look on the patient's face - I don't quite know how to describe it... but it's evident that he knows what is going on - he knows they're turning the device on and off in his head, he knows that without the device turned on in either side, one side will face a lot of difficulty in doing even the simple task of drinking from a cup...

There was that "sigh, I'll just try" look on his face... and when he spills half of the water using the hand unaided by the device, it's almost as if he gives a small shrug and puts the cup down, then lifts it up properly with the other hand...

To know that someone can control your ability to move properly... yet he tries to do the task with all his effort - he doesn't just slack on the task because he knows without the device he can't accomplish it - he tries very very hard to drink properly from the cup... and when he can't complete the task, the look on his face says "Well, I tried..."

I felt disturbed - partly because it seems to be taking away a person's dignity to ask him to repeatedly do this task and keep on switching the bloody device on and off... yes, I know it's to illustrate the point that the device works, but how many times do you have to do it? It got to a point I was like "YES I KNOW IT BLOODY WORKS! Can you please turn the device back on so the man can go off and live his life??!!"

But there was something encouraging about how the man kept on trying and trying...

I told a couple of my friends I have a feeling I'll die young... SM asked if I'm afraid of growing old - cos some people are afraid to imagine themselves with all the ailments of old people, and so they think (or maybe hope) they'll die young... I don't know... It must be quite frightful to lose control over your own movements and body, isn't it? To allow a machine or a drug to help you control your body...

the first video - showing young people trapped in "frozen" bodies... it was horrible too... to know that behind that frozen body is a normal mind that can imagine all the movements and action they want to make, but it just doesn't translate into action... A normal mind trapped in that body for a long time will not stay normal for very long... and when they took the drug L-Dopa for prolonged periods of time, it either gave them hallucinations or they moved too much - they couldn't control their actions and moved excessively...

and someone in that video said - such existence is meaningless...

so disturbing...