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Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole
- Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
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Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole
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Summary
What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this gripping and illuminating audiobook, Dr Allan Ropper reveals the extraordinary stories behind some of the life-altering afflictions that he and his staff are confronted with at the Neurology Unit of Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital.Neurologists diagnose and treat serious illnesses of the brain by combining the hard science of medical knowledge with the art of intuitive reasoning.
The unique challenge they face is that their primary sources of information - the patients' brains - are quite often altered, sometimes bizarrely, as a result of disease. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr Ropper inhabits a place where absurdities abound: a sportsman who starts spouting gibberish; an undergraduate who suddenly becomes psychotic; a salesman who drives around and around a roundabout, unable to get off; a child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive; a figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb; a mother who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth living.
How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr Ropper answers these questions by taking the listener into a world where lives and minds hang in the balance.
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What listeners say about Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Sarah
- 08-04-21
Informative and fascinating
Loved the story and the dialogue.
Fascinating book. Don't dismiss it. Try it it's well worth your time!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Banjo Pink
- 21-10-23
Interesting
A subject of which I knew nothing was made
interesting and informative by the presenter; giving me an insight to the workings of a U.S. neurological department.
Thanks
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mister Peridot
- 02-03-19
Mysteries of the Mind
This is an excellent book and very well read by Paul Boehmer. You can't help thinking that its actually the Doctor who wrote the book who is doing the reading, There are several books available on this subject and I'm glad I chose this one. Its an easy listen without being in anyway patronising to the listener. Though I would have appreciated one chapter which gave a sort of 101 lecture on how neurologists see their subject. They seem to inhabit the boundary area between normal medicine and psychiatry. And its a strange and slightly disturbing world indeed. The author who is a leading American neurologist, discusses the case histories of various patients, giving a brief sketch of who they are and what they do in normal life. So the whole discourse is grounded in an easily understood reality, despite the strange afflictions that his patients suffer from. And there is indeed a lot of suffering here. But the author is clearly a sympathetic man who sees his job as helping people to cope with their situation, especially since there is often no practical cure. The only patient who's true identity is revealed is the actor Michael J Fox who happened to be referred to Dr. Ropper.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 27-09-19
Fascinating and complex all in one
This book covers a huge range of neurological problems, their diagnosis, symptoms and treatments using different case studies. Thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt so much.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- will
- 15-03-21
Great listen
A wealth of knowledge and wisdom and a fantastic glimpse into the world of a neurologist
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 03-03-21
Hmm
I didn't think putting on a feminine voice for the women was necessary but wasn't bad
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Ms R Brunner
- 18-06-16
fascinating
not a novel, but stories from a neurologist life. diagnosing all types of illness that effect our brain behaviour. had to be in the right frame of mind to listen. very interesting.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 18-03-22
pretty interesting
I enjoyed this, it was a quick listen and the audio was well done.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- J
- 13-02-21
Enjoyed every moment
Really captures the diffculties and nuances of neurology without getting bogged down in jargon. Really enjoyed the focus on how decisions are made from a medical perspective. Excellent read
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Urquiza K
- 13-10-20
in the genre of medical memoir
An easy listen. Very interesting cases (you feel like you get to meet the patients and get to know some of them. Also excellent story telling.
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