Prefrontal lobotomy is a hot topic with many psychologists and
psychiatrists everywhere. I find this topic to be so very interesting. A
prefrontal lobotomy is pretty much disconnecting the prefrontal cortex from the
rest of the brain during surgery. Basically, what the surgeon does is cut the
connections of the prefrontal cortex towards the rest of the brain. Many
physicians reasoned that this might help people who suffered from severe,
sometimes untreatable psychiatric disorders. However, this is very dangerous
and could have very serious consequences. Many surgeries (or experiments if
you’d like to call them) have been done very crudely with instruments that are
not seen in hospitals, like metal drills or ice picks. Many doctors perform
these tests even while knowing how many horrible consequences they might cause.
They do this only for their sole gain or to simply quiet unruly patients. This
is seen in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” where several patients in the mental ward receive
lobotomies to discipline or calm them. They end up leaving he lobotomy
affectless, showing no emotion. The narrator of this movie even described how
their eyes are all smoked up and gray and deserted inside.
This video is kind of long but it's so interesting, around 1 minute it shows how they perform the lobotomies and how crude it really was. Towards the end it also gives more information about what happened to some of Walter Freeman's patients.
After reading this post, I was left with my mouth open in shock. I had never taken the time to think over this procedure and how it could possibly be done. I did know what a lobotomy was, but didn't have a clue how they managed to disconnect the prefrontal cortex. I couldn't believe ice picks and metal drills were used on individuals to do this. I haven't had a chance to look more into the subject but I am sure that these strategies aren't used now. If these procedures were done in this manner now a days you can bet people would say something. I have noticed that initially many procedures always have there little weird things that now a days make us cringe. In my child- adolescence class I was taught that doctors use to recommend pregnant women to smoke because child's heads would be smaller making the pregnancy easier. We now know that that is absolutely nuts and harmful to the baby. Do you see where i am going with this? Procedures have come a long way to get where they are today. I agree this is quite cruel and horrid, but its part of what helps us advance to where we are now.
ReplyDeleteWow! While I was familiar with the goals of a lobotomy, I never really questioned how the procedure was done. I could not believe my eyes when I saw how it was done, from the shock therapy to knock out the patient to sticking things behind the eyes in order to practically scramble the brains, this procedure is unbelievable. I am so glad for modern medicine, while it is by no means 100% safe and effective it has helped usher in a new era of medical treatment, one where ice picks and drills aren't normally used in order to treat people.
ReplyDelete