Last December, OK WASSUP! PUBLISHED A STORY about Rom Houben, a Belgian man who had been in a coma since a terrible car accident in 1983, but had suddenly awakened from his coma and was able to communicate via facilitated communication. At the time, we were in a small minority who thought this might be a hoax. But now, fears that this was indeed a hoax have unfortunately come true.
Houben, uncommunicative since his paralyzing car accident in 1983, suddenly seemed to have a message to convey to the world last November with the help of a speech therapist. He was not unconscious, he indicated. He was trapped. But now, neurologist Steven Laureys, one of Houben’s doctors who first diagnosed him as conscious, is telling reporters the speech therapist got it all wrong. While recent brain scans of Houben do show brain activity and even consciousness, Houben is not communicating, Laureys says. The therapist is.
FACILITATED COMMUNICATION has long been considered controversial. The technique is when a helper (supposedly) assists a physically disabled but mentally capable person to type out his or her thoughts on a special keyboard. Independent tests have frequently revealed this technique to be totally unreliable and often the result, conscious or not, of the assistant typing THEIR OWN words, not the patients. Basically, an assistant picks up a patients hand and jams the patients finger into the keyboard, typing out what they “say” are the patients own personal thoughts.
Houben’s family and other doctors, not Laureys himself, brought in a speech therapist, through whom a lengthy message was delivered, including the following:
“I am called Rom. I am not dead. The nurses came, they patted me, they sometimes took my hand, and I heard them say ‘no hope.’ I meditated, I dreamed my life away–it was all I could do. I don’t want to blame anyone–it wouldn’t do any good. But I owe my life to my family. Everyone else gave up.”
Looking for any type of miracle, it was exactly what his family had waited a quarter century to hear. “From the start, I did not prescribe this technique,” Laureys said. “But it is important not to make judgments. His family and caregivers acted out of love and compassion.”
DJ:"At the time, we were in a small minority who thought this might be a hoax."Okay so a show of hands of how many of "Us" are suprised to learn that "We" were right?…(pause)…(pause)….Nobody?…I thought not…:-)