Neuro Note #1 - 50 First Dates


The movie 50 First Dates is about a woman named Lucy who lives with a traumatic brain injury. She was in a car accident on October 13th (her father’s birthday) that damaged her temporal lobe which affected her short-term memory. She can remember everything up until the point of her accident, but she lives each new day as if it is October 13th again because she is unable to create new memories and recall what actually happens every new day. The movie explains she has a condition called “Goldfield’s Syndrome,” however, that is not a real thing. Upon looking it up, I found that what Lucy has would most likely be called anterograde amnesia. According to Mayo Clinic Staff (2017), amnesia in general is the loss of memories, so anterograde amnesia refers to the struggles of learning and retaining new information/memories. I chose to watch this movie because even though I have seen it probably 100 times before (and I’ve loved it every time!), I never thought too much about the actual science behind Lucy’s TBI. After taking one neuro class already and having just learned about brain injuries in our current neuro class, it was interesting to see the movie in a new light.

One thing I did not realize before when watching this movie was how much the people in Lucy’s life worked to make it seem like she was living a completely normal life, as if nothing had ever happened. This included her father, brother, and family friends that worked in the restaurant she ate breakfast at the morning of her accident. They would do the same things every day, celebrate her father’s birthday every night, and set everything back up to how it was in the morning so that it would be the same for her the next day. While I know they were trying to do what they thought was best, I am sure it was exhausting for them to pretend that every day was still October 13th. This continued until a man named Henry began to pursue Lucy romantically and eventually became her boyfriend even though she would not remember it. He came up with the idea to create videos for her to watch every morning explaining what happened to her and what her life was like currently. I thought this was really creative and it made me think about how they all could have benefited from an occupational therapist to come up with even more ways to improve quality of life.

I would definitely recommend this movie for anyone to watch because even though it is a about a very serious situation that could truly happen to anyone, it is portrayed in a light-hearted way that can make it easier to understand. It shows the difficulties for someone living with a TBI while also showing creative ways to continue living life.

Note: You can rent 50 First Dates to watch on Amazon for $3.99.

References:

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2017, August 25). Amnesia. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/amnesia/symptoms-causes/syc-20353360.

Segal, P. (Director). (2004, February 13). 50 First Dates [Motion picture]. United States: Columbia Pictures.

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