Locked In Syndrome Case Study

On the night of Friday, December 8th, 1995, Jean Dominique, a vibrant, adventurous editor for the French Elle magazine suffered from a massive stroke that caused austere damage to his brainstem. Few weeks later, he woke up to find himself paralyzed from the neck down, a neurological disorder called “Locked-In Syndrome”. Although paralyzed, he had his brain normally functioning and in a preserve sense he actually got lucky enough to be able to blink his left eye; unlikely with most victims. This allowed him to communicate, through a unique systematic process of communicating, created by his speech therapist which entailed reciting the French letter repeatedly, until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. Done with painstaking attention, he could spell out words, sentences and, finally, over the course of two months, he completed this memoir. …show more content…
Back in the days, he was constantly surrounded by his two children and wife, but was left with none now. Loneliness and solitude haunted him because of the fact that he could not move, feed nor bath himself. He could not speak at all. What was there to live for? That’s when autonomy ethics become challenging when respecting a patient. In the case of Bauby, autonomy could be fulfilled using the systematic process created by his therapist; however, it needed others willingness to listen and connect with him. The title “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is the metaphor he uses to resemble his life situation throughout the memoir. It comes from Bauby’s doctrine that although his body was submerged in a diving bell- unable to move- his mind (imagination, thought and memory) remain as free as a butterfly and its flights are as random. In fact, he also names one of his chapters “bedridden travel notes’ which poignantly unfolds his life journey through