My Beautiful Broken Mind: Lotje's Story
The source that I used for the following analysis is the Netflix original documentary, My Beautiful Broken Brain. The only way this movie can be accessed is through buying the film or watching it for free on Netflix. This is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSfpA3AEKmY
This documentary delves into the dramatically changed life of 34 year old Lotje Sodderland. She was an extremely organized, busy, and "clever" woman before she had a hemorrhagic stroke. This stroke came with no warning and caused Lotje to be hospitalized. Since the stroke was on the left side and located superficially to the temporal lobe, it resulted in Broca's aphasia. Often known as expressive aphasia, this type of language impairment causes issues with forming sentences and recalling different simple words that would seem elementary to the normal brain. This also means that she can crudely write and cannot read. The stroke also caused a lack of peripheral vision in her right eye. This is because the optic nerve transmits much of the information from the right eye to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is where the stroke occurred. Recovery was difficult for Lotje and was in reach when doctors recommended a new experimental therapy known as Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), which as the name describes is a therapy that involves magnetically stimulating the parts of the brain that were damaged to possibly create new neural pathways for the brain to communicate visual cues and language. Though successful at the time, TMS could possibly be a contributing factor to following seizures that Lotje experienced. This set back her recovery to step one, but to this day Lojte has not given up on her recovery. As Lotje puts so eloquently, "it takes...time to get used to a new brain".
This documentary is eye-opening due to it's immersive nature. We, as an audience, get to explore Lotje's point of view after a normal night in her life was defined by a hemorrhagic stroke. In class, aphasia was briefly discussed and further built on in this documentary. It amazes me that someone can lose control of themselves just because a part of the brain has malfunctioned. The convoluted nature (pun intended) of the brain works as a unit to create a working, functioning human being. It is also amazing that someone with brain damage can really create or stimulate the growth of neural pathways that might help a person with recovery. I think people needed to see this documentary because people who are not studying the brain should know the severity of damage to this delicate and complicated functional "center" for the human body. This is also relevant to my own personal life due to the fact that my grandfather suffered a stroke which resulted in aphasia as well. It was a more visual example so that the audience, such as myself, could understand the damage thoroughly.
This documentary delves into the dramatically changed life of 34 year old Lotje Sodderland. She was an extremely organized, busy, and "clever" woman before she had a hemorrhagic stroke. This stroke came with no warning and caused Lotje to be hospitalized. Since the stroke was on the left side and located superficially to the temporal lobe, it resulted in Broca's aphasia. Often known as expressive aphasia, this type of language impairment causes issues with forming sentences and recalling different simple words that would seem elementary to the normal brain. This also means that she can crudely write and cannot read. The stroke also caused a lack of peripheral vision in her right eye. This is because the optic nerve transmits much of the information from the right eye to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is where the stroke occurred. Recovery was difficult for Lotje and was in reach when doctors recommended a new experimental therapy known as Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), which as the name describes is a therapy that involves magnetically stimulating the parts of the brain that were damaged to possibly create new neural pathways for the brain to communicate visual cues and language. Though successful at the time, TMS could possibly be a contributing factor to following seizures that Lotje experienced. This set back her recovery to step one, but to this day Lojte has not given up on her recovery. As Lotje puts so eloquently, "it takes...time to get used to a new brain".
This documentary is eye-opening due to it's immersive nature. We, as an audience, get to explore Lotje's point of view after a normal night in her life was defined by a hemorrhagic stroke. In class, aphasia was briefly discussed and further built on in this documentary. It amazes me that someone can lose control of themselves just because a part of the brain has malfunctioned. The convoluted nature (pun intended) of the brain works as a unit to create a working, functioning human being. It is also amazing that someone with brain damage can really create or stimulate the growth of neural pathways that might help a person with recovery. I think people needed to see this documentary because people who are not studying the brain should know the severity of damage to this delicate and complicated functional "center" for the human body. This is also relevant to my own personal life due to the fact that my grandfather suffered a stroke which resulted in aphasia as well. It was a more visual example so that the audience, such as myself, could understand the damage thoroughly.
This documentary was a great example and learning aid that can help us(the viewers) learn what happens when different parts of the brain are damaged. This blog correctly stated that TMS might have been a contributing factor to the seizures that followed. But there are also many other things that could have contributed to the seizures that followed including things as small as sleep deprivation or even medication that she might have been given. TMS is just one contributor out of possible hundreds.
ReplyDeleteThis document sounds interesting and since I have a Netflix account now I think I will watch it. I agree that it is amazing how one thing in the brain can effect so much of the human functioning that most of take for granted like simply producing words. I think aphasia in general is especially interesting because it intrigues me that a person would be able to understand words and language but cannot produce it or vice versa. That to me is a indication of how intricate the brain is and how important each individual part is. I also think it is interesting that the brain runs off of electric pulses but you think about electricity being very dangerous to the touch. With us only using what experts say a small part of our brain, I would be interested to see if the technique used to stimulate the part of her brain that was not functional, if it could be used to stimulate other parts to give us new and exciting abilities. Im sure this goes against multiple ethics laws but makes for an interesting thought.
ReplyDeleteI cannot even imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes. To loose your capabilities of being able to read or simply speak to another individual without struggling to recall words. I am surprised to see that Transcranial magnetic stimulation was used as a treatment for Lotje as I know that this therapy is typically used for patients that are suffering from depression. Patients suffering from depression typically use this form of therapy when medications and psychotherapy do not seem to work for them. One of the uncommon but possible side effects are indeed seizures, which would make sense as to why Lotje experienced them. TMS has also been used for people that have suffered from strokes but was used to help enhance upper extremity function. I would be curious to find out how exactly TMS affected her brain; how the electrical stimulations made it more difficult for her brain to recover from the stroke.
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