ALZHEIMERS WILDLY OVERDIAGNOSED, SENIORS REPORT
Script: Carol Kolb (Idea: Carol Kolb)
This draft: CK (1-18)
INT. ONION NEWS STUDIO
Anchor BRIAN SCOTT is behind the desk.
BRIAN SCOTT
In medical news today, an alarming
new study finds the vast majority
of those being treated for
Alzheimers do not, in fact, have
the disease.
FOOTAGE: A doctor talks to a very elderly woman.
ANCHOR (V.O.)
The findings were based on one-on
one interviews with nearly 800
Alzheimers patients.
*ALTERNATE:
ANCHOR (V.O.) (CONT'D)
The findings were based on
interviews conducted in nursing
homes across the nation.
CUT TO:
INT. OFFICE
A researcher in a lab coat.
RESEARCHER
The survey simply asked, "Do you
have Alzheimers?" An overwhelming
majority said "No." Many even
followed up by asking, "What are
you talking about?", "Why am I in a
hospital?", or "Who took my shoes?"
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
... This isn't my bathrobe, is it?
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
... Why are you writing down what I
say?
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
... Are you Cecelia?
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
... Whose wheelchair is this?
**
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
We're still trying to understand
how this kind of widespread
misdiagnosis could have happened.
FOOTAGE: Elderly people in nursing homes.
ANCHOR (V.O.)
Reearchers uncovered some tragic
case histories. One 88-year-old
woman was being held for treatment,
even though she said her young
children were at home with no one
to care for them. One man had a
truck parked outside full of milk
bottles he needed to deliver by the
end of the day, but the nurses
still insisted he stay.
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (V.O.)
I've never seen a human being look
so coldly on another as I did when
I saw a nurse just ignore a 72-year
old woman pleading to be let go so
she didn't keep her prom date
waiting. And the nurse, she did
nothing to help.
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (V.O.)
Patients were lied to for
absolutely no reason.
They were routinely told the buses
were no longer running for the
night so she'd have to stay at the
hospital.
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (V.O.)(CONT'D)
Not only were they prevented from
leaving the hospital, but they were
routinely stolen from-- engagement
rings, war bonds, everything.
RESEARCHER (V.O.) (CONT'D)
It's a blatant abuse of rights. A
grown woman can't be told she's not
allowed to go to Nashville if she
has tickets to see Conway Twitty.
**
ANCHOR (V.O.)
In response, the Department of
Health today ordered nursing homes
and hospitals across the nation to
release their residential patients
immediately.
FOOTAGE: Old people wander out of nursing homes.
FOOTAGE: An old woman in robe walks across a busy freeway.
FOOTAGE: A old man in his underwear lying dead on the street.
**ALTERNATE:
FOOTAGE: A old man plunks a handful of pebbles down on a
restaurant counter.
**ALTERNATE:
FOOTAGE: A old woman tries to feed leaves into a soda
machine.
**ALTERNATE:
FOOTAGE: An old man sits on a child's motion ride in front of
a grocery store.
**ALTERNATE:
FOOTAGE: An old woman is clearly delighted to see her dog and
tries to take the leash from a confused passerby.
**
ANCHOR (V.O.)
The question is: how many other
patients who are perfectly healthy
are being held against their will?
There is an epidemic in this
country of people being kept in
institutions for mental handicaps
they don't in fact report having.
CUT TO:
INT. OFFICE
RESEARCHER
I shudder to think of all people
forced to live in sheltered
facilities who no one has had the
common decency to ask: "Are you
retarded?"
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
I shudder to think of all people
forced to live in sheltered
facilities who no one has had the
common decency to ask: "Are you
developmentally disabled?"
**ALTERNATE:
RESEARCHER (CONT'D)
I shudder to think of all people
forced to live in sheltered
facilities who no one has had the
common decency to ask: "Do you have
a cognitive disability?"
**
CUT TO:
INT. ONION NEWS STUDIO
ANCHOR
Sad story.
**ALTERNATE:
ANCHOR (CONT'D)
Just think, those poor people being
forced to live with retards. Ugh.
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