AwakeningsAwakenings--which inspired the major motion picture--is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - homeschoolmimzi - LibraryThingI like this author a lot, and the premise of the book was interesting, but Sacks being a neurologist infuses his stories w/a bit too many technical terms, and it soon starts to read like a medical record after awhile. Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - William345 - LibraryThingThe crux of the book is the work Sacks began in the mid-1960s with dozens of post-encephalitic patients at Bronx's Beth Abraham hospital, then called the Bronx Home for Incurables and disguised here ... Read full review
Contents
MARTHA | |
Perspectives | |
Epilogue 1982 | |
Postscript 1990 | |
FREUD WILLIAM JAMES AND HAVELOCK ELLIS | |
AWAKENINGS on stage and screen | |
Glossary | |
Bibliography | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
activity akathisia akinesia amantadine attacks became become behaviour brain catatonia chorea clinical completely continued crisis developed disabled disorders documentary film DOPA dopamine dosage dose of L-DOPA drug dystonia effects encephalitic encephalitic patients encephalitis lethargica epidemic Epidemic Encephalitis excitement experience extreme eyes feeling felt festination film of Awakenings forced hallucinations Hester hospital illness impulsions intense Kind of Alaska Leibniz Leonard Leonard L living look Miss H months motionless motor Mount Carmel Mount Carmel Hospital move movement MPTP nature neurological never normal nurses observed occur oculogyric crises once one’s palilalia Parkinson’s disease Parkinsonian patients Parkinsonism pathological perhaps physiological possible post-encephalitic patients posture reactions to L-DOPA respiratory response rigidity Sacks seemed seen sense severe showed side-effects sleep sleeping-sickness sometimes sort speak speech started stopped strange substantia nigra sudden suddenly symptoms syndrome tendency therapeutic thought tics tremor violent walk weeks
Bibliographic information
| Title | Awakenings |
| Author | Oliver Sacks |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013 |
| ISBN | 0307834093, 9780307834096 |
| Length | 464 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / United States / 20th Century Medical / Neurology Psychology / Neuropsychology |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |