How Stephen Hawking, diagnosed with ALS decades ago, is still alive
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Though ALS doesn't affect cognition directly, most patients quickly become more-or-less unresponsive once they've lost the motor skills required for communication. It seems like they go mad from understimulation. I wouldn't be surprised if this leads to a faster death, as they are more likely to just "give up" if breathing or swallowing becomes hard.
Hawking clearly has a vibrant inner mental life, which keeps him engaged with reality. The will to communicate his ideas and the means he has to do so through his custom technology may explain some of why he is surviving so long.
Since Hawking is a celebrity, he gets a significantly higher level of care than would otherwise be available.
(Note for clarity that I am not, in general, in favor of forcing live-prolonging care on people who do not want it due to quality of life issues. But doctors have the same prejudices as everyone else, and people who look physically different or disabled tend to be silently judged as having mental problems, even when that's not remotely true.)
There is not much a Doctor can choose not to do here, because there is not much that a Doctor can do here in fact. ALS is a bloddy cursed mess and a really unique disease.
You don't have any (physical) pain so you don't ned pain killers at all. There is not a pill that you can take or receive from a doctor. No screams, no suffering, no blood or self-harm, no urge to stop the pain. You are not troublesome. You are not contagious and wrapped in plastic curtains.
You are not a menace to anybody.
Everybody cries for you.
You are human until the last breath. First you still can talk, look, and understand, then you still can think, or try to communicate. You are not disfigured, not crazy, you are exactly the same people... "in puppet form". (Yes is cruel to say this). As you are still human and retain your intelligence nobody thinks about the idea of killing you,
Is much more easy for a doctor to disconnect a machine when the people is sleeping, totally crazy, in coma. You don't need to look them in the face and think "yes I'm killing you and you know what I'm doing".
This is incredibly horrible for a family, but, as cynic as this could sound, a pretty uncomplicated disease for the job of the doctors.
He didn't die like many others because his breathing and swallowing muscles still function, and he's been able to afford care by having a job that is supremely suited to his intellectual talents and pays enough to cover bills.
But the article doesn't explain why his breathing and swallowing muscles continue to function normally, unlike other ALS patients.
That he's reached some kind of stability is amazing, but apparently no one knows why. I guess his body just stopped attacking itself? It somehow it can repair at the same rate it attacks?
Really: How Stephen Hawking, diagnosed with ALS decades ago, is still alive
should be How is Stephen Hawking, diagnosed with ALS decades ago, still alive?