Helping Brain Science

Comment:  "I wish we knew more about the brain back then." (Back when I had my brain injury less was known than now.)

We still don't know.

The government cut off my feeding tube supplies in Dec 2016 and I didn't get it all back on until Feb 2017. People in the government may have seen YouTube videos and the logic goes, 'you can talk, therefore you can swallow.' I don't swallow (enough for a test). I was tested and didn't pass. I never had speech therapy. A therapist works on swallowing as you go along. They don't usually get this problem. So I taught myself how to speak enough without swallowing.

I didn't realize I was supposed to be swallowing until a year ago. Long ago I did infant intervention as a home teacher. A few kids had problems with their swallows and I remember the OT recommending lollipops. (Only speech does swallowing now for those who remember.) My thought was, 'I'll teach myself to swallow.' If those babies could do it then so could I. So you see me with a lollipop a lot.

There's more to this brain rehab than just swallowing. I'm still in a coma because I don't swallow. B.S.!! I wrote this thing while I was in a coma? https://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2013/04/i-want-ass.html This needs to be looked into.

Going back to when I was first diagnosed as vegetative, I may not have been vegetative, but totally Locked-In with diminished cognitive capacity. This is why a brain-computer interface and communication software is being researched. The process is slow and has not reached the common household. Some of the beginnings of this research has in the form of 'mind controlled toys,' if you want to look for these, they are now available to the public.

The government's classifying me as in a coma prevents any study of me. "Vegetative" is a coma and one can not give consent. This is a major factor in that slow research. A lot of vegetative could probably answer "yes/no" if given the chance vegetative-state-patient-communication. It wouldn't be instant. The brain injured person has to learn the program.

I was lucky because I had movement in my head at the time. I was in Silicon Valley at the hospital I was at. I could hit a switch with my head that was hooked to a computer for "yes/no." Learning was not instant, and took a few speech therapy sessions. This technology was only available at this particular hospital. It has been 15 years now. I'm seeing the technology more wide-spread, but the typical household isn't there yet. The toys have hit faster.
 

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By the way, I found a back door to this not being able to study problem- Open Science. Basically, keep it all public.

I have obviously progressed far enough not only to answer yes/no questions, but I can give entire descriptions.

Does anyone else see a problem with the diagnosis of "vegetative"? How does a  person give yes/no responses if that person is not conscious?