"Alleviate the suffering of their patients". Yeah, I know.
I'm still not a fan of telling patients that their world view is all wrong, that their brains don't think right and that they need to be fixed. That invalidates their lives and their experiences.
These aren't Alzheimer's patients whose brains are slowly degenerating. Many of these neurodivergents are very capable people when the conditions are right. Society's conditions just aren't right for them.
You simply cannot tell a hyperactive person to sit down and listen to lectures on subjects he couldn't care less about for 5 hours. It's done because things just are that way. Because the government has decreed that children shall be sent to the mass education system we call schools. How do you educate a whole nation? One to many broadcast. One teacher broadcasting knowledge to an infinite number of students. Giving people standardized tests. It's a machine designed to produce educated human beings. Keeps the kids safe and occupied while the adults are working their jobs too, isn't it convenient? It's a system.
Well these patients just aren't compatible with the machine. They get chewed up by it all the same. Then they get treated for ADHD and depression and anxiety.
Maybe, just maybe, it's the ones who need these patients fixed who are in need of some serious fixing of their own. Once I get that out of the way and I make sure they understand this, then I may offer them treatments and medicine. Not before.
You're right, there isn't much freedom to personalize the care we give these people. Truth is health care is yet another machine. A machine that wants to help as many people as humanly possible with the limited resources at its disposal as efficiently as possible. That means standardization. It also means doctors don't have time for this because of "high case load". There must be about a dozen billion humans on this earth by now, you cannot hope to help them all even if you were superman himself.
There's always something that they like. That's always been my experience with these patients. There's always a signal. Always something that just engages their brain like nothing else ever does. One of my patients is on the spectrum and has ADHD. She likes music and plays multiple instruments. Last week her mother was telling me how impressed she was because she just kinda taught herself to play piano out of nowhere. She's nine.
Could we find the right conditions for these people to develop if we used 100% of our will power? I have no doubt in my mind. Whole books could be written about why it is not done.
I'm still not a fan of telling patients that their world view is all wrong, that their brains don't think right and that they need to be fixed. That invalidates their lives and their experiences.
These aren't Alzheimer's patients whose brains are slowly degenerating. Many of these neurodivergents are very capable people when the conditions are right. Society's conditions just aren't right for them.
You simply cannot tell a hyperactive person to sit down and listen to lectures on subjects he couldn't care less about for 5 hours. It's done because things just are that way. Because the government has decreed that children shall be sent to the mass education system we call schools. How do you educate a whole nation? One to many broadcast. One teacher broadcasting knowledge to an infinite number of students. Giving people standardized tests. It's a machine designed to produce educated human beings. Keeps the kids safe and occupied while the adults are working their jobs too, isn't it convenient? It's a system.
Well these patients just aren't compatible with the machine. They get chewed up by it all the same. Then they get treated for ADHD and depression and anxiety.
Maybe, just maybe, it's the ones who need these patients fixed who are in need of some serious fixing of their own. Once I get that out of the way and I make sure they understand this, then I may offer them treatments and medicine. Not before.
You're right, there isn't much freedom to personalize the care we give these people. Truth is health care is yet another machine. A machine that wants to help as many people as humanly possible with the limited resources at its disposal as efficiently as possible. That means standardization. It also means doctors don't have time for this because of "high case load". There must be about a dozen billion humans on this earth by now, you cannot hope to help them all even if you were superman himself.
There's always something that they like. That's always been my experience with these patients. There's always a signal. Always something that just engages their brain like nothing else ever does. One of my patients is on the spectrum and has ADHD. She likes music and plays multiple instruments. Last week her mother was telling me how impressed she was because she just kinda taught herself to play piano out of nowhere. She's nine.
Could we find the right conditions for these people to develop if we used 100% of our will power? I have no doubt in my mind. Whole books could be written about why it is not done.