THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT book Review
In this book, you will get to read the life stories of such special people who are living with extracurricular conditions. These are the stories of people who have suffered brain damage due to stroke, tumor or deep injury to the head.
Dr. Sack is an expert neurologist. He has collected the stories of these patients in this book so that the readers can understand these patients and their problems. Read this book once, this book will surprise you a lot.
Who should read this Book ? Who will learn from this book?
- People who have interest in Psychology
- Who have interest in understanding the mystery of human brain
About the Author of THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT
Oliver Sack is an expert neurologist. They say that the human brain is the most amazing thing in the universe, which scientists are still trying to understand. Doctor Oliver is very famous and has received many awards for his work. Apart from this,
he is also the author of many best seller books. In these books, he has mostly shared the stories of his patients' case studies.
THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT book summary
Introduction
Have you ever wondered that the brain of us humans is an unsolved riddle? How does such a good knowledge store in our little brain? How is our mind so powerful? The human brain is so mysterious that experts from different fields like neurology and psychology have been trying to understand it for many years, but there is still something that is beyond comprehension.
Most of us do not have that much knowledge about brain damage. We learn about brain related conditions only when such a case comes in front of us. You may not believe it, but in many special cases, patients have had strange brain diseases due to brain tumor or any head injury. These diseases are such in which some parts of the brain stop working.
This book is also about such patients, whose book has been written by Dr. Oliver Sacks regarding the Extraordinary condition. Along with being the author of this book, he is also an expert neurologist. In this book, he has shared the stories of such patients, which the readers are surprised after reading.
So, come! Read this book and try to know how powerful human brain is.
The main who mistook his wife for a hat
The man who mistook his wife as a hat (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat)
Have you ever thought what would happen if you do not remember the faces of people? As you saw someone's face, seeing him you smiled and started talking to him, but as soon as that man goes, you forget his face. Has that ever happened to you? Isn't it strange? The person you were talking to a minute ago became a stranger to you in an instant.
But the sad thing is that there are some people who are forced to live with this condition because there is a problem in their visual processing. This happens when there is a deep injury to the head or a human being is the victim of an accident. The brain of these patients is not able to process the faces of the people, so these people try to identify someone with some special features such as dimples on both cheeks or mole on nose.
Mr. P. was a well-known musician and teacher. He said that he does not recognize his students by his name but by his voice. This thing seemed strange and funny to people. Many times Mr. P used to treat non-living things i.e. lifeless things like humans. Like, many times he used to talk to the door knob or fire hydrant just like real humans.
He had diabetes so he was afraid that he might become blind. So he went to an ophthalmologist. Expert told that his eyes are perfectly fine. He also said that Mr. P should consult a neurologist instead of approaching him. And thus Doctor Sack and Mr. P met. Initially, Dr. Sack did not find anything strange about them, but when the conversation of both of them increased, the doctor notices that Mr. P was watching his face very carefully. He came to his left and then right, and then was studying Chin. But Mr. P could not see the full face of Doctor Sack at once.
And the same thing happened to Dr. Sack. He did some routine exams of Mr. P like muscle strength, co-ordination and reflexes etc. Doctor Oliver told Mr. P to remove his left shoe. Then he asked to wear it again, but Mr. P could not wear the shoe. When the doctor started helping him wear a shoe, he said, "I am wearing my shoe", the doctor pointed to his foot and said "Your shoe is still on the floor." To this, Mr. P pointed to the doctor's leg and said, "Oh! I understood that this is my foot "
Apart from some strange things of this type, Doctor Oliver could not see any problem in Mr. P. Then Doctor Sacken picked up a magazine and showed a picture of it to Mr. P and asked him to disburse it. Mr. P was telling the color of the picture, shape or small feature of the rest, but he could not understand what the whole picture is.
Then Dr. Sack asked him to describe the picture of Sahara Desert, Mr. P. said that there is a river and a small guest house there ”. Doctor Sack was surprised because there was nothing like it. And Mr. P felt that Dr. Sahab was impressed with his answer.
Mr. P got up from the chair. He was looking at where he had put his hat. Sitting in his wife chair, he was waiting for him that suddenly Mr. P grabbed his wife's head and tried to put it on his head. Because they thought it was their hat. Actually Mr P had considered his wife as his hat!
Doctor Sack used to go to his house to do Mr. P's exams. Although Mr. P Shapes and the cartoon characters were remembered, he forgot his name when he was shown the picture of the people living in his apartment. He did not remember the names of his co-workers and students.
If Mr. P knew someone, he remembered him with one of his special facial features. He used to watch things in clues or unique features because he did not understand the whole picture.
The main who failed out of bed
The man who fell out of bed
We often forget how complex our brain is. This small part inside the skull stores thousands of millions of memories, remembering many names, that is, information is stored inside the information brain around the world. Whatever we want, whatever information we want, we remain dependent on our brain. However, in today's time, any problem related to the brain is easily known, which was not the case 100 years ago. Today, medical science has become very advanced, yet many mysteries of human brain have not been solved yet.
If there is a blood clot in the brain or there is an air bubble in the blood vessel of a brain, then it can become a serious problem. Of course, a small part of the brain is hurt, but it can affect your whole body because every part of the body is connected to our brain. We should not forget that our brain is the control center of our body.
Once, Dr. Sack went to a patient's room. He was a young man and looked normal. But it was before he slept. The man said that another doctor had told him that he had a problem with "Lazy" left leg. When that man woke up to sleep, he was lying on the ground. He refused to go to bed and kept staring at his left leg for a long time.
Doctor Sack told him to go back to bed, then he shook his head and started to refuse. He said that there was a severed human leg on the bed. He looked horrified. Before Doctor Sack could speak anything, the man began to speak in fear, "Why do I have this strange cold feet on my bed?" I think some nurse has made this dangerous joke with me. In fact, the patient felt that the nurse might have drunk too much in the evening of New Year and had done something with him.
"I think the nurse might have brought a severed leg and put it on the bed." Saying that the patient had a big proud feeling on his face as if he had solved a mystery. And suddenly he picked up the leg which was only visible on the bed and threw it from the bed. His lips were trembling. He was frightened badly and was repeatedly saying that this leg is following him because it is stuck with his body. And he started trying to separate that leg which was his own.
The man was being shouted out of fear that when Dr. Sack came in the middle and explained to him that this is his own leg. But he was not ready to obey the doctor, he felt that Doctor Sack was making fun of him. Then after a long time, he finally understood that it was his own leg which he was thinking of someone else.
He told the doctor that he feels his leg as someone else's. So the doctor asked "If this is someone else's foot, where is your foot?" The man's face was worth seeing on this question, and he said softly "My leg has disappeared and cannot be found"
On the Level As we all know, we have five degrees. Yet there is another sense which works numerically and automatically. Some of us also call it 6th Sense. Now these senses help you to understand as if your hands are on your side, or your feet are in the lower part of the body, or your body is properly shaped. This is called 6th Sense Proprioception.
And we often take advantage of it because we do not take it seriously. However, without proprioception you will not feel your body.
Proprioception is often numbered and taken for granted, because we don't seem to have any specific reason to pay attention to it. We only notice it when it is missing. As if we suddenly have a problem, then we will understand how important it is.
Doctor Sack met Mr. McGregor at a retirement village neurology clinic. Mr. McGregor brought to him the problem that people tell him that he walks on one side, while he feels that he is walking straight.
So to find out this, Dr. Sack asked Mr. McGregor to walk in a straight line and told that he would record his video. Dr. Sack notices one thing. Mr. McGregor was very alert even at the age of 93 and his age was not known by seeing him.
Mr. McGregor stood by the Confidant and started walking. Doctor Sack himself saw with his own eyes that he was not walking straight. He was bent on one side. What the people said was very true. Mr. McGregor was extremely shocked when he saw the video of his walk. He told that he does not feel at all that he is walking on one side.
Doctor Sack told that old man about proprioception. Mr. McGregor gave a small example and tried to tell that he understood the concept. The old man said, "There is a small voice in everyone's mind that tells them don't lean to the side!" Walk straight But there is no such voice in my mind ”and Dr. Sack understood what Old Men wanted to say.
Mr. McGregor also said that his problem was due in part to the work of Carpenter, which he used to do earlier. He used a tool called Spirit Level, which allows carpenters to know if there is a surface level up. It looks like a bar which has a water tube in the middle. When the surface level is up, the water bubble stays in the middle of the tube, but if the surface is tilted to one side, the bubble will move elsewhere. The natural body "spirit level" of Mr McGregor was damaged due to Parkinson's disease.
Now both Dr. Sack and Mr. McGregor got together to overcome this problem. An Extended Horizontal Level was fixed on both sides of Mr. McGregor's Eye Glasses to let him know if he was leaning on one side.
Initially there was a lot of difficulty because Mr. McGregor had to check the level repeatedly. But then soon it got its share. And lastly old man Mr. McGregor had to walk straight away.
