There’s “beating the horse”, and then there’s “equine pulp”.
What a shame to think how many billions of dollars and
countless lives have been forfeited for the wrong target.
Anavex Life Sciences IS the UPSTREAM solution.
The "River Story" is a common way to describe primary prevention. This story is also often called "The Upstream Story." It highlights the need to address the roots causes of a health problem. Some attribute it to the community organizer Saul Alinsky. Some people refer to it as a traditional story or as the "public health parable."
Examples
To introduce "Primary Prevention" I tell the "upstream/downstream" story, then using two pieces of tape or a length of rope or something, show a continuum (river) on the floor, and ask people to move to where they think an example of prevention belongs - you can either read the examples aloud and have everyone move for each one (my preferred way, it's more kinesthetic and it fosters discussion) or hand out cards with different examples on them and each person only stands in one spot (where they think their example belongs). You can insert "secondary prevention" into the story, before the rescuers head upstream (primary prevention). "The rescuers notice that while there are too many babies coming floating down the river to save them all, the chubby ones float pretty well, so they focus on pulling out the skinny ones. One of the rescuers jumps in and starts teaching the babies in the river how to swim." (Janey Skinner)
"Imagine a large river with a high waterfall. At the bottom of this waterfall hundreds of people are working frantically trying to save those who have fallen into the river and have fallen down the waterfall, many of them drowning. As the people along the shore are trying to rescue as many as possible one individual looks up and sees a seemingly never-ending stream of people falling down the waterfall and begins to run upstream. One of other rescuers hollers, "Where are you going? There are so many people that need help here." To which the man replied, "I'm going upstream to find out why so many people are falling into the river." Saul Alinsky, in Shelden & Macallair
