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

BACKGROUND: Post-coma persons in a minimally conscious state (MCS) and with extensive motor impairment and lack of speech tend to be passive and isolated. OBJECTIVE: 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. METHODS:EightMCSparticipants were exposed to the aforementioned approach according to anABABdesign. 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. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: A technology-aided approach to foster responding and stimulation control in MCS persons may be effective and socially desirable.