Defining personal loss after severe brain damage.

The impact of disorders of consciousness in terms of compensation for patients' personal non-economic injuries often raises vigorous debates in legal courts. Attributing personal loss to non-communicating brain damaged patients based on assessment of residual levels of consciousness remains controversial. Is the loss of consciousness in vegetative or minimally conscious state a condition to be compensated for? Does alteration of consciousness diminish the seriousness of injury? To answer these challenging medico-legal questions, three distinct aspects are here taken into consideration: (i) the recognition that disorders of consciousness constitute a personal injury for non-communicative patients; (ii) the scope of the compensation for this injury and (iii) the purpose of the compensation granted.

Locked-in syndrome in children: report of five cases and review of the literature.

The locked-in syndrome is a rare neurologic disorder defined by (1) the presence of sustained eye opening; (2) preserved awareness; (3) aphonia or hypophonia; (4) quadriplegia or quadriparesis; and (5) a primary mode of communication that uses vertical or lateral eye movement or blinking. Five cases are reported here, and previous literature is reviewed. According to the literature, the most common etiology of locked-in syndrome in children is ventral pontine stroke, most frequently caused by a vertebrobasilar artery thrombosis or occlusion. In terms of prognosis, 35% of pediatric locked-in syndrome patients experienced some motor recovery, 26% had good recovery, 23% died, and 16% remained quadriplegic and anarthric. These findings raise important ethical considerations in terms of quality of life and end-of-life decisions in such challenging cases.