LONDON — It was heralded as a medical miracle. After spending more than two decades in a vegetative state, Rom Houben, a Belgian man in his mid-40s, was suddenly able to communicate, news reports trumpeted in November.
Other experts questioned the method that Houben was apparently using to communicate. The technique is known as “facilitated communication,” in which the patient supposedly directs the hand of a speech therapist who types out his thoughts.
Dr. Steven Laureys, a neurologist at Liege University Hospital in Belgium, one of Houben’s doctors, now acknowledges the technique doesn’t work and that although Houben is conscious, he is not communicating.
“We did not have all the facts before,” he said Friday. “The story of Rom is about the diagnosis of consciousness, not communication.”
Houben’s speech therapist had claimed she could feel pressure from his hand guiding her on a keyboard. A basic test was performed that ostensibly proved it was Houben who was communicating.
Since then, Laureys has done his own small study of three speech therapists working with minimally conscious patients, including Houben. In two of those cases, including Houben’s, the technique failed.
“It’s like using an Ouija board,” Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said Friday. “It was too good to be true, and we shouldn’t have believed it.”
