What If An Unresponsive Patient Is Actually “In There”?

Recent research suggest that, for some people, this is reality.

In August 2024, an article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled, “Cognitive Motor Dissociation in Disorders of Consciousness.” It showed that 25% of patients who were deemed “unresponsive” actually did respond when evaluated by either functional MRI, EEG, or both. The article made , and I did not pay much attention to the article. news headlines

That is until I read this column by Brigham and Women’s Pulmonary and Critical Care specialist Dr. Daniela Lamas, in which she wrote:

“ A provocative large study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that at least one-fourth of people who appear unresponsive actually are conscious enough to understand language. As a doctor who sometimes sees patients like this, these findings are, in a word, terrifying. “

The reason she finds this terrifying is that the study showed that, for a significant number of patients who we think are clinically “unresponsive,” they actually might be “in there.” She continued:

“ Studies like this raise the possibility that there are tens of thousands of men and women locked inside their minds, isolated to a degree I cannot even imagine. They are voiceless and largely…