21 Things That Turned 21 in 2015

Is it even worth discussing? I'm assuming you'd need medical insurance for this to matter to most people...

The real question is what do they have to say?

"Still, he shies away from asking patients the toughest question of all — whether they wish life support to be ended — saying that it is too early to think about such applications."

As I understand it; locked-in syndrome is caused by a lesion of the pons. The pons doesn't have anything to do with consciousness or cognition except in acting as a bridge for sensory feedback. A person with a lesion of the pons cannot initiate motor activity or receive feedback from their extremities and trunk because the signal is severed above the brain-stem but below the cerebral cortices and limbic system. Consciousness is localizable to activity of the cortico-thalamic complex which doesn't involve the pons. The pons is a relay station between parts of the brain and the body. A person with locked-in syndrome can be fully rational and lucid while not being able to communicate at all. I would be asking is there any evidence that they are not? Are there any additional lesions affecting other brain areas associated with consciousness and cognition?

why can't we do for people the same thing that is considered humane to do for animals? or at least not 'force' life on them with tubes and respirators.