My Beautiful Broken Brain Movie Analysis Essay Sample

For the final project I decided to do a movie review, I watched a Netflix documentary called “My Beautiful Broken Brain”. The story is about a stroke patient, Lotje Sodderland, who suffered from an intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke at 34. She developed aphasia and was able to understand others but many times when she spoke, she would have trouble finding the right words and struggled with her reading and writing. And the movie documents her 1-year journey of recovery. The movie portrayed the disorder very accurately since it was a documentary about Lotje’s recovery from her stroke. It was also very relatable for other people who may have suffered from strokes. Many people who suffer from strokes develop aphasia which by definition, “is the loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage”. It portrays what people struggle with when suffering from aphasia, many times in the movie Lotje would be talking and she would forget a word that would be on the tip of her tongue but just couldn’t get the word out. You could see the frustration and embarrassment from not being able to remember simple words. 2 months after Lotje’s stroke she decides to enroll in an experimental therapy. They used a device that uses Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation which “is a noninvasive method to stimulate small parts of the brain through induced electric currents”. The purpose of this study was to see whether the TMS can speed up language recovery after a stroke. After many days of this the experiment, the therapy ended due to a seizure that Lotje had. Unfortunately, the seizure brought Lotje back to her earlier stages of recovery and she finds herself struggling more with finding words. What I found interesting in the movie from a perspective as a student new to this profession is the methods used to help patients with aphasia. I want to become a Speech Pathologist who works with stroke patients and to see what those people must deal with every day is sad to see. It is frustrating for them when they must go all the way back to the beginning and start from square one. So, seeing Lotje go to speech therapists to help her regain her knowledge of language or to do the TMS study to see if that could help her improve is interesting to me. Which makes me wonder if there are any other treatments like the TMS that has proven to help patients with aphasia with their language difficulties. This movie helped me better understand the major problems that can occur after someone has a stroke and the difficulties that patient has to endure. I also do have a lot of sympathy for the families as well. Seeing their family member and or loved one starting back from square one and not being the person, they used to be, can be extremely hard. I feel like this movie is important for public awareness because it can happen to anyone at any time. Which is why it is important for people to be aware and to have some sort of knowledge about strokes and the affects that might occur after. That way say it happens to someone in your family, you will be aware of what could/what is potentially happening to them. And that there is a chance of recovery, with a little patience’s and hard work. A year after Lotje’s stroke she was speaking to an audience of therapists at the Cognitive Communication Conference, sharing her experience. Even though things may not be the same anymore she comes to realize that and focuses on her new reality, Lotje states that “it takes a very long time to get used to a new brain”.