Free Republic

One was a middle-aged man who refused to get into the shower. The other was a teenager who was afraid to get out. The man, Leonard, a writer living outside Chicago, found himself completely unable to wash himself or brush his teeth. The teenager, Ross, growing up in a suburb of New York, had become so terrified of germs that he would regularly shower for seven hours. Each received a diagnosis of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, or O.C.D., and for years neither felt comfortable enough to leave the house. But leave they eventually did, traveling in desperation to a hospital in...

Jens Clausen is at the Institute of Ethics and History in Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. Email: jens.clausen@uni-tuebingen.de Top of page Abstract Brain-implantable devices have a promising future. Key safety issues must be resolved, but the ethics of this new technology present few totally new challenges, says Jens Clausen. D. PUDLES We are so surrounded by gadgetry that it is sometimes hard to tell where devices end and people begin. From computers and scanners to multifarious mobile devices, an increasing number of humans spend much of their conscious lives interacting with the world through electronics, the only barrier between brain...

Deep-brain stimulation offers hope for minimally conscious patients.CLEVELAND CLINIC Deep-brain stimulation might help trauma patients regain consciousness. Brain function has been improved in a patient who was in a minimally conscious state, by electrically stimulating a specific brain region with implanted electrodes. The achievement raises questions about the treatment of other patients who have been in this condition for years, the researchers say. Patients in a minimally conscious state, often the result of severe brain trauma, show only intermittent evidence of awareness of the world around them. Typically, they are assumed to have little chance of further recovery if they...