The Movie Awakenings Dr Malcolm Sayer

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Awakenings is a movie centered around, during the time period of 1969, a physician by the name of Dr. Malcolm Sayer. Dr. Sayer works at a local hospital in the New York City area with survivors of an epidemic by the name of encephalitis lethargica. After being hired, Dr. Sayer is assigned to work with patients, an experience he has never before. Through his time spent with the patients, Dr. Sayer discovers that the “frozen” patients are able to be reached at certain times. For example, with his first patient Lucy, Dr. Sayer does a series of experiments in which he drops her glasses to learn whether she is able to catch them or not. To his surprise, he hypothesis is correct and he carries on another series of experiments in which all of the “frozen”patients are involved. Dr. …show more content…

Sayer continues with his interesting experiments with the patients and comes to the realizations that the patients can be reach through hearing familiar music, experience human touch, etc. Sayer also learns that one of the patients, Leonard Lowe, is a able to communicate through the use of a ouija board. At one point in the movie, Dr. Sayer attends a conference which discusses a drug by the name of L-Dopa and its impact of patients with Parkinson’s Disease. Through this conference, Sayer crafts a hypothesis in which he believes the drug can be utilize to aid of the “frozen” patients. After getting permission from the hospital and Leonard Lowe’s mother, Leonard becomes the first patient to undergo the drug treatment. After Leonard experiences an awakening, Dr. Sayer is motivated to get funding in order to start the drug therapy of the other patients. Soon enough, the rest of the “frozen” patients experience awakenings themselves as well. The patient begin to adjust to their lives and Leonard get involved with another patient daughter name Paula. Soon Leonard, meets with the board of the hospital as he hates being unable to have the freedom to travel anywhere

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