(New York Times) – 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.

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 invisible, with some of them being cared for in nursing facilities. (Read More)