Boyle M E, Greer R D
J Appl Behav Anal. 1983 Spring;16(1):3-12. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1983.16-3.
Operant procedures were tested on three patients who had been in vegetative coma for 6 months, 10 months, and 38 months. A discrete trial procedure was used to test compliance to verbal requests for three behaviors for each patient, including lateral head movement or finger movement, eye focus or eye squeeze, and mouth movement. The design for each patient consisted of multiple baselines across three behaviors with a withdrawal phase and a reinstatement phase (ABAB) for one behavior. Baseline phases were followed by contingent music phases in which 15-second taped excerpts of patients' preferred music sounded immediately following the emission of targeted behaviors. The contingent music treatment affected all three behaviors for Patient 1, but was less effective for two out of three behaviors for the second and third patients who had been in coma for more extensive periods of time. Results are discussed in terms of the potential contributions of the use of operant assessment and treatment procedures in an area of medicine where they have not been used before.
对三名分别处于植物人昏迷状态6个月、10个月和38个月的患者进行了操作性程序测试。采用离散试验程序测试每位患者对三种行为的言语指令的依从性，这三种行为包括头部侧向移动或手指移动、眼睛注视或挤眼、以及嘴巴动作。每位患者的设计包括对三种行为的多个基线，以及对一种行为的撤药期和恢复用药期（ABAB）。基线期之后是应急音乐期，在该阶段，目标行为出现后立即播放15秒患者喜欢的音乐录音片段。应急音乐治疗对第一名患者的所有三种行为都有影响，但对昏迷时间更长的第二名和第三名患者的三种行为中的两种效果较差。本文讨论了在以前未使用过操作性评估和治疗程序的医学领域中使用这些程序的潜在贡献。
