How would they get the information to transmit while only touching a person’s elbow or shoulder? How could a paralyzed person transmit any instructions through that elbow or shoulder as specific as “press A on the keyboard”?

Why doesn’t Stephen Hawkings use s facilitator? Because he would disprove what they’re doing. Strange how the only people that this supposedly wosks with are people who can not confirm the facilitator’s accuracy.

I’ve seen facilitators facilitate while only touching an elbow or shoulder. Where are you all getting your information that facilitation “doesnt work” if the facilitator isn’t looking at the keyboard.

(facilitation while only touching the elbow)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyjl4p2mNK4

But I think that misses the point here. The patient may well be conscious; that doesn’t imply anything about whether he’s communicating.

If Randi is dead, then there’s been a cover-up of epic proportions

The paper doesn’t mention facilitation. Nor does it mention communication, except as one measure in assessing vegetative state.

Further experiments (e.g. in which the child was shown an image not shown to the facilitator and asked to describe it) showed the communication to be entirely that of the facilitator.

These experiments are easily implemented and would quickly set the record straight for this subject, as well, were the patient’s family (and doctors?) not wedded to the false hope provided by what is almost certainly a farce.

What’s really sad is that the experts and the so-called doctor journalist just take this at face value. And I have to consider that this story is being promoted cynically right now just to inflame anti health care reform sentiment.

Just how long has this particular “facilitation” gone on? Who initiated it and why? How long did it take for the “facilitator” to produce communication and what’s the supposed process (feeling micro muscle twitches or is there a psychic claim?) and who does the “facilitator” work for?

Thanks for that link! Fascinating video, watched the whole thing.

Thank goodness James Randi is still out there. It sounds like a human Ouija board.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3439467496200920717#

Also, Frontline did a very good documentary in ’93 on FC.

however, there are folks who have been “locked-in” and there was one (disturbing) research investigation into awareness levels of vegetative patients that showed brain activity consistent with awareness — here’s the pubmed entry:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16959998

“We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate preserved conscious awareness in a patient fulfilling the criteria for a diagnosis of vegetative state. When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving around her home, the patient activated predicted cortical areas in a manner indistinguishable from that of healthy volunteers.”

note that the researcher’s findings have not been verified or replicated, but the study and research is probably still very solid science.