Assistive technology to help persons in a minimally conscious state develop responding and stimulation control: Performance assessment and social rating.

Abstract

Post-coma persons in a minimally conscious state (MCS) and with extensive motor impairment and lack of speech tend to be passive and isolated. This study aimed to (a) further assess a technology-aided approach for fostering MCS participants' responding and stimulation control and (b) carry out a social validation check about the approach. Eight MCS participants were exposed to the aforementioned approach according to an ABAB design. The technology included optic, pressure or touch microswitches to monitor eyelid, hand or finger responses and a computer system that allowed those responses to produce brief periods of positive stimulation during the B (intervention) phases of the study. Eighty-four university psychology students and 42 care and health professionals were involved in the social validation check. The MCS participants showed clear increases in their response frequencies, thus producing increases in their levels of environmental stimulation input, during the B phases of the study. The students and care and health professionals involved in the social validation check rated the technology-aided approach more positively than a control condition in which stimulation was automatically presented to the participants. A technology-aided approach to foster responding and stimulation control in MCS persons may be effective and socially desirable.