2023 Cond Nast. It may sound simple, but it made a huge difference to me. The therapy isnt easy, it seems to her that it will take forever to improve. Through extensive in-patient and out-patient rehabilitation that included occupational therapy, speech therapy, visits with both a psychologist and psychiatrist, she makes a profound recovery, despite the post-seizure regression she experienced following the experimental transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treatments. NEURO SYMPOSIM BEIJING. Speech therapist Goh Huai Zhi shares his understanding of the brain and insights on aphasia recovery. Filmmaker Lotje Sodderland documents her recovery process from the hemorrhagic stroke she had at 34 and the new life she builds in the aftermath. The stroke was an upsetting event in my life, but I could also see it as a great blessing and opportunity to change and simplify my life in a positive way by focusing on what really mattered. To get money, I would need to use a machine that spewed out notes. But no more than the average Lynch fan. But at the end of the program, she still cant read. I had no strategy to survive any catastrophes of the heart was it utterly unwise to expose myself to such potential loss? Im grateful to have learnt so much more about the challenges of being human - so early on. The challenge is to rebuild your identity, Sodderland told me when I spoke with her and Robinson by phone from Austin, Texas, earlier this week. Objects would appear, shift and disappear Icouldnt help but wonder if the world was playing an almighty trick on me. It didnt, she says, After her stroke Lotje Sodderland tried electronic pulses to fire up parts of the brain responsible for reading. Lotje Sodderland is an award winning writer and filmmaker, who started her career as a documentarian at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) and advertising agency Mother in London. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. This was always a possibility due to her stroke, it turns out, with or without the experimental therapy, althoughthe TMS may have contributed. And in a way? There is no silence more resounding than that of a cognitive communication malfunction. It is very difficult to be other peoples property. I was put on a waiting list and while I waited, received what the NHS calls therapy at home. Meeting with fellow patients has helped in rebuilding Mrs Tans confidence. The hospitals language therapist had promised to get me discharged as soon as possible, assuming I was eager to go home. If it feels weird and uncomfortable, well hold off a bit or maybe we just wont do it.. Aphasia SG is a not-for-profit organisation supporting persons with aphasia and their caregivers. [8], Netflix started streaming the film as a Netflix Original worldwide on March 18, 2016.[9]. It left her initially unable to read, write, speak or think coheren. Tom Hanks is your guy. Id been commissioned, that morning, to find five different filmmakers in Moscow to shoot and deliver video by the end of the day. She hears intense sounds. The seizure is a huge setback that brings Lotje back to earlier stages of recovery. Though the film showed mostly positive scenes, there were many difficult moments that were not captured, such as my mental health struggles which are an invisible part of recovery. I had no idea how to meditate and was too fragmented to listen to the teacher, but the sweet silence of the shrine room had me instantly hooked. Doing simple daily activities such as accessing your bank account or doing anything bank-related after a brain injury can be so complicated. La La Land will certainly be different, a musical comedy-drama about a young pianist and an actor played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone respectively, This is something of a question mark. Used to solving problems and travelling the world, she suddenly couldnt understand how to get out of her flat to ask for help. I didnt need much sleep, and really enjoyed overdoing it at work and play. But from that first interview she did on camera, my hairs stood up on my neck.". Looking back it was actuallyvery liberating -to have no ego, no past or future, no understanding of a lost, logical life. Add or change photo on IMDbPro Add to list More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Awards 1 win & 6 nominations Known for My Beautiful Broken Brain 7.1 Director 2014 Limbo Short Director 2021 Can You Rebuild My Brain? I am very fortunate that my friends and family are very loving and supportive. Mr Tan shared: 25 January 2019 is a day that I try not to remember. I would then spend a further 140 minutes a day on the laptops visual and sonic word repetition training app. London, England, United Kingdom. Thoughts occurred to me. I earn a living that way, but I no longer read and write. It is run by a team of dedicated speech therapist volunteers. Somebody gave me back my iPhone in the hospital, a few days after the stroke, and I quickly re-learned how to use it and started recording myself. I spent three months as an inpatient at a rehabilitation centre, receiving physical, psychological and linguistic therapy. It later turned out that my stroke had been caused by a rare developmental malformation of blood vessels in my brain: something like this could have happened at any time. "He knows about the non-linear narratives and the subtle relationship between the mundane and the surreal." Lotje Sodderlands documentary about her recovery, made with director Sophie Robinson, is now showing at festivals; go to mybeautifulbrokenbrain.com for more information. A house cleaner desperately searches for her husband as a dreaded criminal syndicate dredges up past tragedies and ultimately drives her to violence. My Beautiful Broken Brain aired on Netflix on March 18, 2016. Lotje Sodderland. Starring: Sophie Robinson, Lotje Sodderland Watch all you want. Its like, Okay, Im never going to be the same as I was before, but then nobody is. My friends and family thought I was going to die and they got quite scared and stressed, especially since we were unfamiliar with neuroscience or the brain. But sarcasm is a complex linguistic process, so I have lost it to some extent. Sodderland still struggles to read and write and has had to accept the differences in her new life. Its very different. Trained as a paramedic during his national service days, Mr Tan instinctively called for an ambulance immediately. "It wasn't a logical reality, it was another dimension. Thank you so much for joining us. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Lotje Sodderland explores beauty and positivity after a traumatic health scare At age 34, film director Lotje Sodderland was struck by an intracerebral haemorrhagic stroke after a night out with her friends. I figured out the video function on my iPhone, and began to record my new life. When we came for the activities, my wife had to wheel me in, and people thought I was the patient.. "But I knew that I'd need some help.". Videos I started to have dark, repetitive thoughts like I was not getting better, not able to get a job or be independent.The classes were also useful for calming the mind as after a brain injury, it is so hard to switch off the negative thoughts to rest or sleep. I had to. She has tried reading childrens books with family, rewatching movies with subtitles on, and browsing cooking blogs. It's expected to have an anti-SeaWorld message, which should make it strike a chord with parents as well as children, There's still a lot of love for Roald Dahl's stories, and this one is being adapted by none other than Steven Spielberg. After waking, I was diagnosed with aphasia, which affects your cognition and communication skills, and homonymous hemianopsia-meaning I'dlost almost all the vision in my right eye. Now, I have to be selective about where Ifocus my attention. As part of that documentation, I was having this imaginary conversation with him. I had the camera with me, and there and then we said, Should we just try to do a bit of filming now and see what it feels like for both of us? Thisheartfelt documentary is an honest portrayal of the process of re-learning to live with a broken brain, ofhuman fragility and vulnerability, of persisting in the difficult journey of recovery through series of setbacks and bad news, of dealing with uncertainty of whether things will ever get better orwhether, instead, they will get worse, of realizing that there are many questions that have no definitive answers or clear explanations. Its about having to rethink your life halfway through, and that can happen to any of us. At the age of 34 Lotje Sodderland suffered a stroke that almost killed her but left her with a fascination with the science that saved her life. Soon after Iwas born, my parents broke up, and my mother, my older brother, Jan, and I moved three times before I was 16, when we ended up in London. She started taking video-selfies of herself while still in hospital, and two weeks later contacted documentary filmmaker Sophie Robinson to enlist her help. Lotje Sodderland is on Facebook. He said, Do you remember me? But he did it in a very collaborative way. Inoticed that we hadnt said anything for a while. She woke up in hospital two days later, and once she had her belongings returned to her, found herself reaching for her iPhone and once someone had shown her how to use it again pressing record, Although initially Sodderland was using her phone videos to help her remember all the meetings with doctors, she realised that she also wanted to document what was happening to her. When I woke up, I knew who he and my mother were but I couldnt be sure the familiar stranger inhabiting my body was me. We just didnt know how to. I think its quite unusual to survive if you're by yourself and have a brain haemorrhage -as it's almost impossible to have the ability to figure out what to do. The world sounded loud: a passing ambulance; human laughter; a howling fox; birdsong everything passed through me at the same piercing pitch. The film was initiated by its protagonist herself. As I was filming that first interview, I remember the hairs on my arms sticking on ends, thinking theres something really extraordinary about this woman and everything thats happening. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. After suffering a stroke at age 34, a woman documents her struggles, setbacks and eventual breakthrough as she relearns to speak, read and write. Films confused me the glaring shapes hurt my eyes. I had spent the weekend with friends, watching fireworks over London, and trying to make impossible things happen for a deadline at work, where I was a documentary producer. But it was decided that this experiment could no longer be run on people who had suffered a stroke within the past year. Can You Rebuild My Brain? Lotje has Aphasia and we see her tryingto re-learn how to use words. She was a 34-year-old advertising executive with no indications of underlying health issues. This interview has been condensed and edited. I want to learn more words to argue and feel more like a married couple So, I am going to keep practising until I succeed, she laughed. Around April, I also started researching community groups and found Aphasia SG.. I looked at my iPhone, but had no idea how it worked. I see my stroke as a kind of rebirth; unexpected and painful, but also more vivid, filled with purpose, meaning and potential. I did something that I normally never do, which is: I took a camera with me. She made it her mission afterwards to understand. Join Facebook to connect with Lotje Sodderland and others you may know. When I didnt respond, she said, Most people cry when I tell them this. The idea was to confront me, in an attempt to get me to improve, but I found it very distressing. HAPPINESS INITIATIVE SINGAPORE. First I would need to get some money. I have no idea how I walked down four flights of stairs, orhow I found myself across the street in a hotel, trying to ask the receptionists for help. The extraordinary documentary takes you on a journey inside Sodderland's mind, using special effects to recreate the distorted vision she experienced as a side-effect of the stroke and the pulsating colours and strange visuals that became her new normal. We see Lotje typing a text but she cant read what she has just typed. Mrs Tan said: Right now, a year on, my language skill is like a primary three student. Filmmaker Lotje Sodderland documents her recovery process from the hemorrhagic stroke she had at 34 and the new life she builds in the aftermath. Every three minutes and 27 seconds, someone in the UK has a stroke. Before, I weighed my quality of life according to how busy I was, both at work and socially. It was a lovely email. I moved into my own place, and vowed never to see another therapist again. I was emerging after two days inan induced coma, after having an intracerebral brain haemorrhage - an unprovoked bleeding of the brain - at the age of 34. To make sense of what had happened, the former film producer documented her feelings and experiences with her therapies, physiological changes and a newly acquired communication disorder called aphasia through video clips that were turned into a full-length feature film called My Beautiful Broken Brain. Filling in a thick form, the doctor asked me questions, occasionally glancing up to gauge my responses. I encourage patients to find creative or unique outlets to express themselves and understand their emotions in non-traditional ways other than writing and reading. PEOPLE 2008.3.10 Text: Lotje Sodderland Vlieger & Vandam comprise Carolien and Hein (respectively), a Dutch husband-and-wife team who's happy union was the result of a friend's casual match-making exploits. The taxi slid over the speed bumps on the way home; it felt as wild and frightening as a lifeboat on a stormy sea. Lotje Sodderland was a digital producer at a hip London creative agency when she suffered a stroke that decimated her language skills and threw her sensory perception into disarray. March 22, 2016. This year, I fell in love, a terrifying prospect when operating a new brain. He was driving, sitting on my blind periphery, and after a moment spent wishing I was clever and conversational, I glanced over and saw that he expected nothing, that we were entirely comfortable cloaked in silence. Sometimes, it is not about choosing to be positive but to understand and acknowledge that you have been hit with a mental condition or illness and working your way out of it is going to be very tough. He genuinely seemed really interested in my experience. He really helped us massively. I remember at one stage wanting to die because the pain was so intense. Funding for editing and post-production was collected via Kickstarter between November 28 and December 20, 2013. Ive got a really nice camera, and I make documentaries. Founded in 2018 by volunteer speech therapists, Aphasia SG aims to create a community where patients with aphasia can bond and speak comfortably at their flagship programme, Chit Chat Cafe. This year, I told my husband that I have a new goal I want to be able to argue with him. My Beautiful Broken Brain is a 2014 documentary film about the life of 34-year-old Lotje Sodderland after she suffered a hemorrhagic stroke as a result of a congenital vascular malformation in November 2011, initially experiencing aphasia, the complete loss of her ability to read, write, or speak coherently. As Tom chops the kindling while I write this, I feel so very fortunate to be here in the sumptuous stillness, with the singing of tawny owls in the evening. But I think its fantastic. To help communicate, and make sense of her strange new world, Sodderlandfilmed her recovery and the resulting film, My Beautiful Broken Brain,is now on Netflix, executive produced by Twin Peaks director David Lynch. I used it to record what was going on in my new world. Things change constantly for everybody. But after a few months, the intense regime soon got taxing on the couple. Five years ago, one of those people. I was just really reminded of his work. A fluorescent green laptop screen would flash single words at me and simultaneously play them into my ears; I would repeat them back. With Lotje Sodderland. People taking over my plans, my life. Starring: Sophie Robinson, Lotje Sodderland Watch all you want. Sodderland describes the process of making My Beautiful Broken Brain as essential to her recovery. When Mrs Tan regained consciousness, Mr Tan also had to manage his wifes agitation towards her weakened condition and new disability called aphasia. EMMY AWARDS. Here, she speaks to Telegraph Women about the day she became a different person. Now, after the success of My Beautiful Broken Brain, they see the value of story-telling for brain-injured people. Videos We met. I was filled with faith that this was going to work, and was prepared to overlook the gruelling downsides, including the discomfort of the daily currents andthe punishing, repetitive boredom. My Beautiful Broken Brainis an intensely personal story of a 34 year old woman, Lotje Sodderland, who documented through film her 1-year journey of recovery from hemorrhagic stroke, which resulted in Aphasia. Lotje Sodderlands long journey to a happy life with what she calls her new brain began early on a November morning in 2011. Brain as essential to her that it will take forever to improve, but I no longer and!: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF, and two weeks later contacted documentary filmmaker Sophie Robinson Lotje. 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