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Borderlands of living – perspectives on consciousness, potential and decision making across clinic, research and patient relatives

One-day seminar inviting participants with different experiences and perspectives on disorders of consciousness to engage in a conversation around the borderlands of living: the promise and pitfall of technologies to determine conscious responses and the spaces of uncertainty in which decisions in neuro critical care are made.

Info about event

Time

Tuesday 22 February 2022,  at 09:00 - 16:00

Location

Online (please register)

Borderlands of living – perspectives on consciousness, potential and decision making across clinic, research and patient relatives

Unresponsive patients with severe brain injury become more prevalent in acute and long-term care. This has extensive implications for the patients, their relatives and for society, and it spurs increasing attention to questions of the relation between responsiveness and consciousness. 

This seminar invites participants with different experiences and perspectives on disorders of consciousness to engage in a conversation around the borderlands of living: the promise and pitfall of technologies to determine conscious responses and the spaces of uncertainty in which decisions in neuro critical care are made. 
Through the day’s keynotes and research presentations we will be tracing the uncertainties of consciousness as they emerge in clinical and research contexts when looking for signs of consciousness in patients with severe brain injury. This will open questions about evidence and experience, as well as debates of care and rights in the welfare health system.

The aim of the seminar is to create a shared space to investigate perspectives on consciousness in the borderlands of living to encourage a conversation across different perspectives on how uncertainties in assessment, treatment and care, and potential for recovery, are negotiated in the search at the bedside and in research of unambiguous signs of consciousness. Such conversations are central to the decision making in neuro critical care and to our ethics in rights of care. 

The seminar is a part of the research program Borderlands of Living, Aarhus University, funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and Central Denmark Region. 
 (https://interactingminds.au.dk/projects/borderlands-of-living)

Time and date: 22 February 2022, 9am – 4pm (CET)

The seminar will take place on Zoom. Link to the event will be sent to participants after registration.

Participation is free of charge

Questions regarding the event can be sent to: hoybye@clin.au.dk 

 

Program, February 22nd

9.00: Welcome 
9.15: Exploring the Borderlands – questions from the Borderlands project, shared by Lise Marie Andersen, Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg and Mette Terp Høybye, Aarhus University and Silkeborg Regional Hospital.
10.15: Break
10.30: Keynote: Coma and other disorders of consicousness - is anyone in there? – Associate Professor Daniel Kondziella, Dept of Neurology and Neuroscience Centre, Rigshospitalet and Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Copenhagen
11.30: Break
11.45: Research presentation: PhD student Alberte Seeberg, MSc, Aarhus University: Contextualizing explainability: decision support systems for end-of-life decision-making and considerations of explainability
12.15: ’A Relatives Journey Through the Healthcare System’ – Søren Bechmann, patient relative, public speaker and writer; CEO, Service Design Institute
12.45: Lunch
13.15: ‘INviteME’ – an online participatory score inviting us to explore and change our perspective and perception of space, by, in an embodied way, listen, pay attention and create novel connections by being conscious of what we are noticing. A mid-day, virtual, collective reflection exercise,  facilitated by artist researcher Dorte Bjerre, Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University 
14.30: Break 
14.45: Keynote: Consciousness and decision making about life-sustaining treatment – Professor Jenny Kitzinger, Co-Director of the Coma and Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre, Cardiff University, UK
16.00: Goodbye and thank you