Known as locked-in syndrome or cerebromedullospinal disconnection, this rare condition leaves patients paralyzed but mentally aware and awake. In French, the condition is called “l’emmure vivant,” which literally translates to “walled-in alive disease.”
It can be caused by a number of different factors. These include a stroke at the basel artery, which feeds blood to the upper portion of the brainstem, traumatic brain injury, disease of the circulatory system, medication overdose or damage to the myelin sheath of the nerve cells.
Most patients that suffer from this condition cannot move even their facial muscles or make any sounds. Some can communicate by blinking. There is no standard cure or treatment, and it is unlikely that any motor function will return. It’s estimated that several thousand Americans each year suffer from this condition. Ninety percent of these patients die within the first four months of onset.