MEDICAL CLASSIFICATION: ALIEN HAND SYNDROME
Todd Lewis, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and brain injury rehabilitaion specialist. He's seen his share of "unique" patients while working at the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia, but one woman took the cake, hands-down. During an interview with Lewis, her left hand suddenly shot off the armrest of her chair and dropped straight down. The arm just hung limp at her side, but she ignored it. When he asked her if she needed help putting her hand back on the chair, she snapped, "It's not myh hand." A few minutes later, the hand leapt up grabbed her glasses off her face, and threw them to the ground. She calmly picked them up with her other hand. Then it happened again. "Quit it!" she finally said to her hand. A second later, a patient came by in a wheelchair. The woman's left arm reached out, grabbed the chair, and wouldn't let go. " I can't help it," she cried. "It's not my arm. I can't make it stop." Pulling off glasses is just the rogue hand's way of saying hi---it gets worse. "The hand could choke the patient or try to scratch out eyes, and keep groping and grabbing--often doing inappropriate things," says Lewis.
Being physically unable to let go of the state trooper's nuts: bad. and diagnosing alien hand isn't easy, either. " Doctors who see it for the first time usually think it's got to be psychological, but it's actually neurological," says Lewis. The condition is rare and usually turns up after a stroke, though it can also result from trauma to the brain, which controls limb function. A brain-to-hand message such as "Let's pick up this pencil" gets translated into "please stab me in the eye until I pass out."
While there's no known cure, alien hand does tend to disappear after a few weeks or months. Usually, as the stroke trauma fades, so does the syndrome. No real stats exist on your odds, but Lewis has seen it show up in one of every 100 stroke patients---pretty strong odds for those who find that simple drooling and paralysis just aren't enough. According to the National Stroke Association, your chance of getting a stroke in your lifetime: one in 10, double that if you smoke.
Talk to the hand.
Todd Lewis, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and brain injury rehabilitaion specialist. He's seen his share of "unique" patients while working at the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia, but one woman took the cake, hands-down. During an interview with Lewis, her left hand suddenly shot off the armrest of her chair and dropped straight down. The arm just hung limp at her side, but she ignored it. When he asked her if she needed help putting her hand back on the chair, she snapped, "It's not myh hand." A few minutes later, the hand leapt up grabbed her glasses off her face, and threw them to the ground. She calmly picked them up with her other hand. Then it happened again. "Quit it!" she finally said to her hand. A second later, a patient came by in a wheelchair. The woman's left arm reached out, grabbed the chair, and wouldn't let go. " I can't help it," she cried. "It's not my arm. I can't make it stop." Pulling off glasses is just the rogue hand's way of saying hi---it gets worse. "The hand could choke the patient or try to scratch out eyes, and keep groping and grabbing--often doing inappropriate things," says Lewis.
Being physically unable to let go of the state trooper's nuts: bad. and diagnosing alien hand isn't easy, either. " Doctors who see it for the first time usually think it's got to be psychological, but it's actually neurological," says Lewis. The condition is rare and usually turns up after a stroke, though it can also result from trauma to the brain, which controls limb function. A brain-to-hand message such as "Let's pick up this pencil" gets translated into "please stab me in the eye until I pass out."
While there's no known cure, alien hand does tend to disappear after a few weeks or months. Usually, as the stroke trauma fades, so does the syndrome. No real stats exist on your odds, but Lewis has seen it show up in one of every 100 stroke patients---pretty strong odds for those who find that simple drooling and paralysis just aren't enough. According to the National Stroke Association, your chance of getting a stroke in your lifetime: one in 10, double that if you smoke.
Talk to the hand.
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