wakenings
Part 1: In the movie Awakenings, a man named Dr. Malcolm Sayer applies for a job at a hospital in The Bronx, New York. As hes being interviewed its obvious that hes nervous and not comfortable around people. His resume shows how in the medical field, hes mostly spent his time doing research and experiments but never working with humans or psychological problems. The manager hires him anyways and he gets right to work. They give him a patient named Lucy who has been in a catatonic state for over 30 years. She isnt able to talk or move any part of her body. When her glasses drop, Dr. Sayer notices how she only grabs them when he drops them in front of her hand. He then experiments by throwing a tennis ball to her and watches…
When Dr. Sayer finds out about a drug for Parkinsons patients, he believes the catatonic patients will respond to the drug. The drug is expensive but Leonards mother pays for it because she wants her son to get better. The first dosage of L-Dopa doesnt work at all. When Dr. Sayer increases the amount of the drug he gives to Leonard, he finds the patient completely awake from the catatonic state hes been in for years. The results are amazing and he tries to get the hospital to pay for the drug for all the other catatonic patients but he is told that its too expensive. Most of the staff give up their paychecks for the drug and Dr. Sayer hosts a lecture about the drug to which he gets many donations. All the patients are put on the drug and have successful awakenings. Not long after, Leonard starts showing the negative side effects of the drug. His personality changes and he has spasms. Dr. Sayer attempts to find a dosage of L-Dopa that wont have such harsh side effects but soon he must give up and Leonard along with the other patients returned to their catatonic states once again. Although the L-Dopa drug didnt work, the last scene shows Dr. Sayer experimenting with Leonard once again yet because this was based on a true story, we know that a cure was…
