Reflections: neurology and the humanities. Molecular medicine and the art of brain repair.

Abstract

Stroke, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury claim patients in an instant from the ranks of the whole and independent and render them mentally or physically impaired. Once patients with acute diseases of the brain and nervous system are medically stabilized, they embark on neurorehabilitation, which reflects a medical past of longer admissions and deep personal interactions between staff and patients. Because neurorehabilitation stands apart from the trajectory of acute medical illness, its current practice remains a mystery for many physicians. In the book of shadows the first page is dark and the second darker still, —Linda Pastan, “The Book”¹