Essay - Corpus - Page 24

Concerning anxiety: art meets neuroscience

5 December 2016 Leave a Comment

Brian Hyland in conversation with artist (& occasional poet) Mike O’Kane

In the corner of my office, I have a sculpture on loan from artist Mike O’Kane. It confronts me every day with a wonderful juxtaposition of the themes of my work in neuroscience: how the brain works, and the personal experience of conditions that strike to the sense of self and the equilibrium of mood and emotion. An extremely prevalent example is anxiety disorder. Many of us have either personally experienced this, or know of someone who has.

Mike built the sculptural piece in response to a family member’s experience of anxiety with panic attacks, to explore the possibility of achieving a therapeutic in(ter)vention through art. [Read more…] about Concerning anxiety: art meets neuroscience

The Spedale Degli Innocenti: Florence’s Foundling Hospital

28 November 2016 3 Comments

Bruce Summers

I have always considered it a crime, when attending international medical meetings, not to escape the academic ambience of seminar rooms, Powerpoint presentations, labelled lanyards and corporate coffee for the real and less organised world outside. Despite the excellence of the biennial Sixth International Clinical Skills Conference at Monash University in Prato, I felt little guilt in bunking off an afternoon session to visit Florence, just a 25 minute train journey away. I have visited Florence several times before, attracted, like so many other visitors, to the Renaissance art and architecture that is liberally scattered throughout the city, and so accessible, even if a wait, sometimes long, is involved for some of the main tourist attractions.

I was intent however on visiting the Spedale Degli Innocenti, the Foundling Hospital in Florence, construction of which started in 1419 and which continued as an orphanage until 1875.

Confabulations

28 November 2016 1 Comment

Dr Joe Baker

Con-fab-u-la-tions: – chats; discussions; – replacements of memory gaps with imaginary imperfect, distorted or misinterpreted memories consistently believed to be true.

A busy over-booked morning clinic and a consequential shortened lunch break. The paperwork can wait. There is just enough time for a quick visit to the local coffee shop to relax and dip into my new John Berger book.

I order a coffee, turn, and am truly delighted to see Bruce, a former patient who is revisiting the area. We talk at length about all things non-medical. While I can remember his Paisley-lined collar shirts I have completely forgotten why he used to visit me. I have always had the ability to forget patients’ problems when they leave the practice; I think this may be some psychological protective device.

[Read more…] about Confabulations

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy – and a little art with our medicine

28 November 2016 1 Comment

Dr Cindy Towns

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is thought to account for 1-2 percent of acute coronary syndromes (ACS), ACS being medicalese for what most people would call ‘heart attacks’.

Takotsubo as a diagnosis got its name from a Japanese Octopus pot which looks a little like the Takotsubo heart on echocardiography (essentially an ultrasound). Takotsubo has some more creative synonyms, including acute stress cardiomyopathy, broken heart syndrome and ‘scared to death’. It mimics a traditional heart attack but is not due to coronary artery disease. Rather, the structure of the heart balloons in places. Classically, physically or emotionally distressing events precede the presentation, but the exact mechanism of the condition remains speculative. It has been associated with earthquakes in both Japan and New Zealand.

There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in

21 November 2016 1 Comment

Max Reid

This post was originally written late on Friday 11^th November 2016, after a week of struggling to come to terms with the American election result, only to hear that afternoon of the death of poet/songwriter/musician Leonard Cohen. Adjusting to that news with a glass of wine at the ready, and Leonard’s London Concert double album playing loud enough to send the cat and dog scampering for cover, the post originally began, “Just when you thought events in the world couldn’t get any worse … we hear news that Leonard Cohen has died…”

“Anthem” Leonard Cohen, Auckland 21 December 2013 (his last concert)

Well, events in the world invariably can and do get worse, and sometimes a wee bit close to home. Within little more than 48 hours North Canterbury and Wellington had been rocked by a series of devastating earthquakes.

So this post, which was originally drafted as something of a tribute to Leonard Cohen, now serves as much as a tribute to people of Kaikoura and the surrounding areas – as they wrestle to find meaning and hope in the midst of what for them is, in so many ways, a broken world.

Jane Austen’s satire on hypochondria

21 November 2016 Leave a Comment

Jocelyn Harris

Between 27 January and 18 March 1817, Jane Austen wrote her final, unfinished, novel Sanditon, meaning a town built upon sand. This blistering satiric anatomy links hypochondria, property speculation, and consumerism—invalids seek out seaside resorts, property prices rise, and developers cash in on the new health fads of sea air and sea-bathing. In Sanditon, Austen demonstrates her modernity, her courage, and her worldliness. Yet again.

Jane Austen knew all about hypochondriacs, because Mrs. Austen was one. I cannot forgive her for occupying the sofa after a busy day gardening, while Jane lay dying on two chairs shoved together (Jane died on 18 July 1817). But as Mary Musgrove says in Persuasion, “I am very far from well; and Jemima has told me that the butcher says there is a bad sore-throat about. I dare say I shall catch it; and my sore-throats, you know, are always worse than anybody else’s.”