Summary of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

by Oliver Sacks | Includes Analysis

Instaread Summaries

• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781683782322
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Summary of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: by Oliver Sacks | Includes Analysis

Preview:

In this 30th anniversary edition of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,

Oliver Sacks, M.D. brings together more than two dozen narratives of patients with

many different neurological impairments. The narratives illuminate medical details

of the diseases while illustrating how those diseases play out in a patient’s thoughts

and actions, bringing a more human aspect to the ailments.

These neurological impairments take on many forms. Losses can be highly

disruptive to a patient’s life, such as Jimmie G.’s severe memory loss. However,

many patients find ways to adapt to their ailments and recoup those losses in other

ways, such as Mr. P., a music teacher who lost his ability to distinguish faces and

objects, even mistaking his wife for his hat, who learned to sing to himself to keep

from becoming disoriented. And MacGregor, who installed a level on his glasses

to enable him to stand upright to correct a persistent lean…

PLEASE NOTE: This is key takeaways and analysisof the book and NOT the

original book.

Inside this Instaread of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat:

? Overview of the book

? Important People

? Key Takeaways

? Analysis of Key Takeaways

About the Author

With Instaread, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15

minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for

your convenience.

 

 

 

ANALYSIS

 

 

 

Key Takeaway 1

While diseases have mainly been described in the form of a case history, this format does not always lend itself to explaining the totality of how a disease affects a patient. A narrative, on the other hand, humanizes illnesses and explains them in a way a case history does not.

 

Analysis

In a case history, the impersonal descriptions of diseases do not capture the totality of the ailment or how it is displayed by a patient. To focus on the patient as the center of the disease’s story means to introduce a who that corresponds to the what, deepening a case history into a narrative form. This brings together both the physical and mental symptoms of a disease.

Choosing to explain a disease in the form of a narrative instead of a case history illuminates characteristics of the disease that are only present in the life of a patient, not a written list of symptoms and treatments. Learning about physiological processes is generally relegated to medical school textbooks and scientific journals and books, but the biography of a patient who experiences those physiological processes can offer more than just a baseline of effects on the body.

Instead of being described simply as a patient with a malignant brain tumor that causes reminiscent hallucinations, that patient becomes Bhagawhandi P., a teenage girl who has struggled with this tumor all her life and who ends her life experiencing gradually lengthening periods of dream states in which she sees images of India, her childhood homeland. The latter description not only adds depth and character to the disease, but also explains in narrative form what that disease might look like in an actual patient. Such a description could be helpful for physicians and neurologists trying to diagnose or treat a patient by referring to past case studies.

Narratives also make pathology and science more accessible to a wider audience. Readers could get bogged down by scientific jargon and complex medical concepts that should be reserved for medical journals. Instead, readers can better understand a disease, what it looks like, and how it works through stories of the people who spend their lives trying to cope with their neurological impairments.

Key Takeaway 2

In reaction to their neurological ailments, patients sometimes figure out ways to work around their impairment or otherwise compensate for a neurological issue, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Analysis

Several patients learned to cope with their neurological ailments and devised ways to help themselves live a normal life even though they could not cure their neurological impairment. Christina lost feeling in her body, a condition called proprioception, but she learned how to move her body by employing her vision to guide her. By using her eyes, she eventually learned to restore more graceful motions and could live and work as close to normally as she could. Mr. MacGregor lost his ability to perceive when his body was leaning to one side, so he had glasses made with a level that would tell him when he was leaning so he could immediately ...

Table of contents

• OVERVIEW
• MAIN CHARACTERS
• KEY TAKEAWAYS
• ANALYSIS
• Key Takeaway 2
• Key Takeaway 3
• Key Takeaway 4
• Key Takeaway 5
• Key Takeaway 6
• Key Takeaway 7
• Key Takeaway 8
• Author’s Style
• Author’s Perspective
• REFERENCES