Dissociation syndromes - scope for misinterpretations

@HealthMed The complex phrases 'dissociation syndrome', 'extinction syndrome' and 'neglect syndrome' embraces a wide range of categories of altered perception from 'out of body' experience to failure to recognize parts of the body as one's own. Causes may include generalised altered perception in response for example to effects of inflammatory cytokines/toxins/prescribed and recreational drugs. And localised altered perception, typically due to a stroke affecting the pre-motor cortex altering proprioception of the affected contra-lateral part of the body or the visual cortex.

Visual perception may compensate for tactile extinction or neglect however patients with these problems find it more difficult to convalesce, for example in returning to normal physical aspects of daily life from dressing to other complex motor tasks. Physicians need to take care to assess for occult visual or other forms of sensory dissociation (or extinction) syndromes in at risk patients.

Psychotic disorders are a further category, either due to endogenous syndromes or to neuroleptic effects of prescribed or recreational drugs. As a caution for patients and health professionals wishing to know more about the syndromes and their consequences, writers have been attracted to this theme and texts may be misunderstood as literal description, from generalised dissociation, to local abnormal perception e.g. Le bras cassé (The broken arm) by Belgian-born French poet, writer and artist Henri Michaux.

With evolving digital repositories meshed with expert multi-focus editing, it will become possible to provide appropriate 'health warnings' for the patient, health professional or casual reader, explaining the complex nature of the work. However, it would not be surprising to discover works largely of the imagination misfiled in factual medical sections in conventional libraries and bookshops.

It is unclear what inspired Michaux to write on this theme, beyond his personal experience of breaking his arm. Or whether his descriptions and text were influenced by the coincidence of his self-declared experimentation with mescalin and other drugs: through long-term effects on his personal perception of his body or perhaps through use of these drugs during convalescence from his fracture.

New Hippocrates Prize for schools launched

@HealthMed

The Hippocrates Initiative has launched the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets for an unpublished poem of up to 50 lines (excluding the title) in English on a medical theme.

Entrants may be young poets from anywhere in the world who must be aged 14 to 18 years on the closing date for entries - midnight GMT 1st March, 2013.

The first prize is GBP 500 for the winning young poets, with a further 10 awards of commendation for the most highly rated entries.

The Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets will be judged by English poet and playwright Clare Pollard.

Clare Pollard said: “Having my poetry published when I was sixteen altered my life.  It made me believe I could actually be a writer, and vow to work as hard as I could to make it happen. 

 “The great thing about poetry is that age doesn't matter. It's hard as a teenager to find the time and stamina to write a perfect novel, but you can write three perfect verses.  If you put down the things you really want to say about our world, in your own voice, you will have written a powerful poem.”

Born in 1978 and raised in Bolton, she read English at Cambridge University. She published her first collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, with Bloodaxe in 1998 aged 19.

Awards will be announced on Saturday 18th May, 2013 at the end of the 4th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, at the Wellcome Collection Rooms, Euston Road, London.

The inaugural Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is supported by the UK medical charity the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine and the UK National Association of Writers in Education.

Further information on the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets will be announced shortly.

Enter online for the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets

Website for the Hippocrates Prize

Smoking advice in literature

F Scott Fitzgerald

@HealthMed In 'The beautiful and damned', F Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the East Coast 'smart set' during the period just before The Great War and published in 1922, mention of smoking by the superficially charmed young men and women is very frequent, including for Gloria (age '22'). However also striking is Gloria's comment on advice from reformers that '... if you smoke so many cigarettes you'll lose your pretty complexion!'
Further examples welcome of earlier literary offers of advice on risks of smoking, heeded or ignored?

See related previous blog on: Stopping smoking - why and how?