Communication Barrier

I have a story of how a combination of technology and staff overcame a communication barrier. A man I met in my practice had ALS (Lou Gerrigs' disease). He could no longer move anything other than his right thumb and his eyes, but with this disease your brain still functions at a normal rate. As you can imagine this must have been frustrating and scary for this gentleman and his family. His family were able to get him a device that looked like a small laptop and the mouse could be manipulated by his thumb. Amazing! With alot of patience, as it would sometimes take him some time to get what he wanted accross, we would be able to know without a doubt what he needed. Unfortunately eventually he was unable to use the "board" but we had anticipated this and developed a way for him to answer at least yes or no questions. He would open his eyes wide for yes and close them for no. Why this system worked was because the whole team (this includes the family of course) were consistent and worked together. I don't think anyone went away from that experience feeling like they didn't do everything they could.