locked-in syndrome

locked-in syndrome (uncountable)

1. (medicine, neurology) A rare, severe physical disorder in which a person cannot speak and is paralyzed—with the possible exception of some voluntary eye movement—while their mental faculties remain fully intact.
   • 1988, Ronald E. Cranford, “The Persistent Vegetative State: The Medical Reality (Getting the Facts Straight)”, in The Hastings Center Report, volume 18, number 1, page 30:

     The locked-in syndrome is a medical condition in which, though both level and content of consciousness may be fairly normal, the patient is so severely paralyzed it may appear on superficial examination that he or she has diminished consciousness.

   • 2012 June 19, Amelia Hill, quoting Tony Nicklinson, “Man with locked-in syndrome calls for change to murder law”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     A a^[sic] 58-year-old victim of locked-in syndrome has told the high court that a decision not to allow him to be helped to die would condemn him "to a 'life' of increasing misery".

• pseudocoma