This essay will evaluate the question: How did language and communication play a role in shaping what happened to Lia? Additionally, it will be explored whether Fadiman points to ways in which communication practices between doctors and patients could be improved. These were important in the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall, because they shaped what would happen to Lia in the end. The evidence we will examine will include the fact that the doctors and the Lees could not understand each other, the hospitals did not have enough interpreters for everyone, and that the Lees did not trust the hospitals or the doctors in the first place because of their culture. Anthropological studies on language and communication would be directly linked to Lia's case for a few reasons: Lia and her family were Hmong, her parents could not read or write, they did not give her enough drugs. Additionally, Lia was estranged from her parents due to language and communication barriers that led to her parents not giving her medications at all, and also because the interpreters were unclear about what to give her. Language and communication played a huge role in the outcome of the trial. Leah. If his family had been able to read, write and speak English, perhaps he could have received the help he needed. Instead, doctors did their best to make sure Lia's parents knew how many medications to give her as Fadiman stated in the book, "Foua and Nao Kao, of course, had no idea what the labels read" (1997; 46). So they had no idea how much she needed every day, and also most of the time they didn't trust doctors, so Lia didn't even take her medicine. This had a major impact on Lia's body and because of this she started having more and more seizures. The interpr...... half of the document ......could have been improved between doctors and patients in simple ways. Interpreters were used and the children went to school and helped translate for family members. This helped communication a little, but it wasn't enough. There may have been no other way to help, but some people tried and the doctors tried to be patient with the Hmong to understand what they wanted and to make them understand what was happening. To conclude, with the Lees being Hmong and not wanting to conform to society and respect the way things work, I feel that Lia's fate was inevitable. The doctors did everything they could, but in the end it wasn't enough to prevent Lia from dying of brain death. Language and communication may have been the only thing that caused Lia to suffer because the doctors could not understand the Hmong and the Hmong could not or refused to understand the doctors.