Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Left Neglected

My book club read Left Neglected by Lisa Genova.  The same author, a Harvard trained neuroscientist, wrote Still Alice which was about Alzheimer's Disease.  Left Neglected is about a condition called left neglect - something people can get after traumatic brain injuries or strokes.  Although they can see to their left, the brain does not accept any information on the left.  The left side of the plate goes uneaten and unrecognized even when hungry.  The jewelry on the left hand is unseen.  The entire left arm is ignored to the point where people come out of the bathroom unaware their left hand is tucked into their underpants.  Lisa Genova explains the left neglect condition through her story of a type A busy executive mother of three who gets into a car accident while reaching for her cell phone.  Her life changes dramatically from 12 hour work days and arranging day care to learning how to walk, dress herself, and read a sentence from a book.  Not only is this great fiction but it's educational too.  Good book!

2 comments:

Cajo said...

I was just talking about this on Sunday! Such an odd phenomenon.

Sue said...

Yeah, brains are fascinating - both how they work and how they don't work.

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