The Awakening

The Awakening

The awakening is a story based on true happening way back 1969. In 1969, Dr. Malcolm Sayer is a dedicated and caring physician at a local hospital in the New York City borough of The Bronx. After working extensively with the catatonic patients who survived the 1917-1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica, Sayer discovers certain stimuli will reach beyond the patients' respective catatonic states; actions such as catching a ball thrown at them, hearing familiar music, and experiencing human touch all have unique effects on particular patients and offer a glimpse into their worlds. Leonard Lowe proves elusive in this regard, but Sayer soon discovers that Leonard is able to communicate with him by using a Ouija board.

After attending a lecture at a conference on the subject of the L-Dopa drug and its success with patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, Sayer believes the drug may offer a breakthrough for his own group of patients. A trial run with Leonard Lowe yields astounding results as Leonard completely "awakens" from his catatonic state; this success inspires Sayer to ask for funding from donors so that all the catatonic patients can receive the L-Dopa medication and experience "awakenings" back to reality.

The whole story is fascinating and heart-whelming film. I am wondering if what was really happened to Leonard that led to that condition. I thought the place where patients with post-encephalitic syndrome a mental hospital because of the misbehaviour of the patients. It’s really funny when Dr Seyer. was trying to assessed those persons when they exhibited strange and hilarious behaviour. An example of this are when an old woman catching his eye-glasses, a woman who shouted in hearing just a click of a pen. The most interesting part of this dilemma is the never-ending care and assistant of their family even there are nurses assigned to take good care of them.

I realized that in every work, job, responsibility and obligation, every persons must give their heart to it, most especially if it is a social work wherein you are serving for the people because if you are just working for a money all things go rough, meaning you cannot enjoy and well contented with the public services you are catering of. In the case of Dr Seyer without his concern persons in that hospital will no longer be awakened and didn’t experience to enjoy life even in just a short time.

For those early years wherein there is no such medicine for a certain illness, truly there is an experimentation made to patients in order to identify such cure. I am just wondering if it is based on a true story, in the modernization of the world, I am sure that there is a medicine for post-encephalitic syndrome.