Pennsylvania – A leading bioethicist yesterday cast doubt on the sensational story of a Belgian man who was diagnosed as comatose for 23 years — but who doctors say may have been conscious the whole time.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
As the man reportedly typed out a message yesterday with the help of an aide to say he felt reborn after decades of loneliness and frustration, the scientist said he was skeptical that the patient was truly communicating on his own.
“That’s called ‘facilitated communication,’ ” said Arthur Caplan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, after seeing video of car-crash victim Rom Houben’s hand being moved along the keyboard.
“That is Ouija board stuff. It’s been discredited time and time again,” Caplan said.
“When people look at it, it’s usually the person doing the pointing who’s doing the messages, not the person they claim they are helping.”
Caplan also said the statements Houben allegedly made with the computer seem unnatural for someone with such a profound injury and an inability to communicate for decades.
Houben, when asked how he felt after his consciousness was discovered, responded through the aide that, “I especially felt relief. Finally be able to show that I was indeed there.
“Just like with a baby, it happens with a lot of stumbling,” he wrote.
Doctors diagnosed Houben as being in a vegetative state until an expert, using a specialized type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s, says he finally realized Houben was conscious and provided him with the equipment to communicate.
Assisted by a speech therapist who rapidly moved his finger along a touch-screen keyboard, Houben told AP Television News that years of being unable to move or communicate left him feeling “alone, lonely, frustrated but also blessed with my family.”
The therapist, Linda Wouters, told APTN that she can feel Houben guiding her hand with gentle pressure from his fingers, and that she feels him objecting when she moves his hand toward an incorrect letter.
“It was especially frustrating when my family needed me. I could not share in their sorrow. We could not give each other support,” Houben wrote during the interview at the ‘t Weyerke institute in Zolder, Belgium.
“Just imagine. You hear, see, feel and think, but no one can see that. You undergo things. You cannot participate in life.”
The doctor who discovered that Houben had been wrongly diagnosed said that he is re-examining dozens of other cases.
Dr. Steven Laureys said he has discovered some degree of consciousness using state-of-the-art equipment in other patients but won’t say how many.
He looks at about 50 cases from around the world a year, but none are as extreme as that of Houben, who was fully conscious inside a paralyzed body.
Many center on the fine distinction between a vegetative state and minimal consciousness.
“It is very difficult to tell the difference,” he said.
First, Arthur Caplan is a bioethicist (whatever that is) not a even doctor, let alone a neurologist. Second, he has not had any direct contact with the patient or doctors but is, rather, like the rest of us just a voyeur with an opinion and a soap box aided by a journalist with an agenda and a deadline. There is, however, a much more salient matter that puts the viewpoint of Caplan and his ilk of materialistic ethicists (an oxymoron if ever there was one) in its proper perspective. We find that whenever an event occurs that induces awe when faced with the vast mysteries of life (that arises upon the realization our conversely vast ignorance) they quickly step up to throw a bucket of the cold water of “rational skepticism” to douse any re-kindled belief in the giver of life.” In others words they are of the nation of Amalek who cooled the ardor of those who straggled behind. (hamven yavin)
Maybe he was in a vegetative state & the family gave money to kupat haer
After all the right-wing yelling about doctor death panels and such, the truth now comes out…this poor sould can’t communicate at all except through some self-appointed shaman who can “feel his resistance” to “incorrect letters”. Uh-huh.
Should’ve known.
I don’t get this…are his eyes closed? if so, how does he know where the letters are? Hard to understand.
this has happened before when people claim severely autistic children communicate with that machine.
How could he pressure her finger wouldn’t that have been noticed many years ago
cnn has a video of the patient and facilitator. You watch it and see that it looks like I am sorry to say nonsense
Although many of you might be skeptical of facilitation there are many trustworthy Yidden who do it. Next time you visit Israel, drop in to the home of Hagaon V’tzaddik R’ Yisroel Glustein shlit”a (b-i-l of R’ Noson Tzvi Finkel shlit”a) and watch his wife facilitate with her son. Everyone in the Mir knows him.
This kind of facilitation has been around for many years. In nearly all cases it is discredited by not allowing the facilitator to hear the question. The answers are suddenly non-responsive.
I feel so sorry for this man and his family. Coma is coma. It is a sad state of life, but is LIFE. Perhaps as we learn more about the brain we will find ways to stimulate portions of the brain back to a functional state. Until then, we can only daven for these poor souls.
Amid the debate about value of facilitated communication the crux of the matter is overlooked. Namely, brain functioning was detected in an human being who until now was considered to be in a persistent vegetative state. It should give everyone pause to consider whether we as a race have achieved the moral and ethical standards equal to the unchecked implementation of the knowledge we now possess. Knowledge that far too often, has been proven to be wrong or incomplete.
Now four years later the truth comes out, we can revisit the Hunger induced court forced killing/death of the young lady based on the ‘Expert” testimony of the so called “husbands “
” Professionals” !!
The CONTENT of the message have been provento have Had Details and info totally unknown to the facilitator ! Therefore proving without doubt since that would impossible do be created by the facilitators mind.
Establishment types have yet to Learn of these advancements in Hash-ems world .
I am not sure what testing has been done on this patient, who has been reported to be awake (if true, he might be in a minimally conscious state, or perhaps was in a locked-in state, but I am speculating).
However, facilitated communication has been repeatedly shown to be an artifact and not real. Those who use it for autistic children, for example, and then claim all sorts of things are misguided, fooled, or charlatans, in my experience. If the person holding the hand is blindfolded and given earplugs, the ‘miraculous’ performance of the autistic child suddenly disappears.
So most of you are saying they should have killed him ages ago?!? You are all r’shoyim!