Telekinesis : Are We There Yet ?
Gloomy and cold winter evenings can be quite depressing , but they do provide an opportunity to watch movies , which can be the right antidote if they make us laugh . It is even more rewarding when you get to watch them in the company of the grandkids . On a recent rainy night , the movie my grandson chose was Matilda , a story based on a book by the famous Roald Dahl . 1 It depicts a young girl with extraordinary telekinetic powers . There are many hilarious scenes where she uses her unique talent to move objects just by her thoughts . The movie has a happy ending with Matilda using telekinetic power to make the school principal , an embodiment of malignant narcissism , flee in horror from the school .
It has been a lingering problem for me to resist an undesirable temptation while watching movies my mind tends to wander and look for a clinical situation that mimics the underlying story ( I
by VASUDEVA IYER , MD
call it “ clinicophilia ”). While enjoying this movie , I was thinking how wonderful it would be to have telekinetic powers if you were quadriplegic , or suffering the wreck of your body from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ( ALS ). I was reminded of one of my beloved English language teachers who was not only endowed with impressive pedagogical skills , but also excelled in writing short detective stories . When he was in his 60s , he saw me as a patient for progressively worsening muscle weakness ; the clinical findings unfortunately pointed to ALS as the likely diagnosis . Within a year profound weakness of hands and later significant dysarthria followed . I could see the anguish he experienced from not being able to do the two crucial activities he loved : teaching and writing . This event happened many decades ago , way before computers were available and there was not much I could do to help him . The feeling of being totally powerless to help my beloved teacher was very painful to me ; this is one situation which can take away any pride and confidence one may have felt as a physician .
The blossoming of the electronics and computer era is steadily improving our prospects of helping patients with loss of speech and
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