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Aug 29, 2017

British doctor found way to talk to patients in vegetative state

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

British neuroscientist (file pic) Adrian Owen made it his mission to find a way to communicate with patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state.

Since 1997, I had been using hospital brain scanners to test patients in vegetative states to see if they were in fact still conscious, though trapped in their bodies.

I was working as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital when I scanned my first ‘vegetative’ patient, Kate, while showing her photos of her family as she lay inside a brain-scanning machine.

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  1. Neil Caldwell says:

    Try, and you may already doing this, sensory input from all the senses at once in a relatable scenario.
    Such as the smell of his wife’s perfume and a picture of her face or them dancing at their wedding and the sound of her voice and a song the stroke victim would love.

    I am interested in your thoughts, thankyou for your time.
    N. Caldwell