"Tell the doctor where it hurts." It sounds simple enough, unless the problem affects the very organ that produces awareness and generates speech. What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this updated and expanded 2nd edition of Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole, Dr. Allan Ropper and Brian Burrell open the doors to the neurology ward at a major teaching hospital to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice's Wonderland, it is a place where absurdities abound, where on any given day one might hear of:
How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.
In the dozen years since the first edition of this book came out, the practice of clinical neurology has changed in several important ways, largely due to advances in biological research. In this new edition, the authors describe these changes by following up on some of their most challenging cases – that of a former professional athlete with ALS, who persevered undeterred for over 20 years; and that of a famous actor, equally undeterred, who has made life better for everyone dealing with Parkinson's disease. The authors also illustrate what has not changed: the intensity of face-to-face encounters between doctor and patient in diagnosing problems of the brain and mind. For anyone interested in the cold hard truth of the how the brain does and does not work, these stories penetrate the veil.
