Social Uncertainty in Disorders of Consciousness: Shedding Light on the Various Perspectives of Family Caregivers and Surrogates

摘要

Johnson and Lazaridis (2018) encourage their readers to acknowledge, communicate, and consider uncertainty in health care decisions for patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). We agree that a distinctive feature of DOC is a high level of uncertainty. We also agree that uncertainty should be openly acknowledged by health care professionals in order to allow well-founded, responsible decision making. Yet when the authors describe four sources of uncertainty in DOC—scientific, personal, practical, and ethical sources—they miss out on a fifth major source: social uncertainty. In this commentary, we elaborate on social uncertainty with a focus on subjective DOC theories and surrogate decision-making frameworks.