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  • Author or Editor: Andrea Kübler x
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This article is dedicated to a group of chronically ill patients who are no longer able to communicate verbally due to severe physical impairment. They are perfectly capable of emotional and cognitive processing, but they are locked in a paralysed body. Thinking and feeling are intact, but can no longer be expressed. We will present a brain-computer interface to maintain or re-install communication in cases of severe or total motor paralysis. The lockedin state is seen as one of the most difficult and horrific situations in which human beings can find themselves. The majority of the population assumes that diseases leading to the lockedin syndrome allow, justify or even demand euthanasia. Life in this state is seen as not worth living. We found, however, that severely paralysed patients even when dependent on artificial nutrition and ventilation experience a satisfactory or good quality of life. The (wrong) perspective of healthy people must not lead to legalising euthanasia.

In: Zeitschrift für medizinische Ethik
In: Das technisierte Gehirn