What Locked-In Syndrome Actually Means for Your Family
Locked-in syndrome (LIS) leaves a person fully conscious and aware but unable to speak or move most of their body. They can think, feel, and understand everything happening around them, but the connection between brain and body has been severed at the brainstem. For many patients, the only movement they retain is limited eye control.
Living with LIS is not simply a medical challenge. It is a complete restructuring of how your loved one exists in the world, and how your family supports them.
The Ongoing Care LIS Requires
Depending on the severity of the condition, your loved one may need some or all of the following:
- Continuous nursing care or in-home attendant support
- Mechanical ventilation or respiratory management
- Feeding tubes and nutritional monitoring
- Augmentative communication devices
- Physical, occupational, and speech therapy
- Specialized seating, positioning equipment, and adaptive technology
- Long-term facility care if home care is not feasible
None of this is temporary. Many LIS patients live for a decade or more after diagnosis, and families who plan for that reality from the beginning are better positioned to provide for them.
What This Care Costs in Massachusetts
Massachusetts families dealing with LIS face costs that can quickly exceed what most households can sustain without financial assistance.
| Type of Care | Estimated Cost in Massachusetts |
| Private duty nurse (hourly rate) | $110/hour |
| Private duty nurse (visit rate) | $148/visit |
| Long-term care facility, e.g., nursing home (semi-private room) | $14,400/month |
| Long-term care facility, e.g., nursing home (private room) | $15,800/month |
Source: CareScout
Our Process
We guide you through every step with clear communication and compassionate support.
Free Consultation
Call us anytime to discuss your case. We listen carefully and answer all your questions with no obligation.
Medical Review
Our team conducts a thorough investigation with qualified medical experts to determine if malpractice occurred.
Legal Action
If we find evidence of negligence, we build a strong case and handle all legal aspects on your behalf.
Secure Recovery
We fight to secure the financial resources your family needs for long-term care and peace of mind.
When a Medical Error Made Things Worse
The most common cause of locked-in syndrome is a brainstem stroke that is not treated in time. Strokes are time-critical emergencies: every minute without treatment increases the damage. When the window for intervention closes, the consequences can be permanent.
Sometimes LIS develops even when every provider did everything correctly. But sometimes it develops or is made significantly worse because someone in the chain of care made a preventable mistake.
Situations Where Negligence May Have Played a Role
Medical negligence in LIS cases can take many forms:
- A doctor dismisses stroke symptoms as a migraine, anxiety, or something benign and sends the patient home.
- Diagnostic tests are delayed or misread.
- A patient showing signs of stroke is not transferred quickly enough to a facility equipped to treat it. This is common. To prevent long-term disability from a stroke, the Brain Attack Coalition and the Joint Commission created a 120-minute (or less) guideline for transfers. Massachusetts has a median 126- to 131-minute time for transfers involving acute ischemic stroke eligible for endovascular therapy and a median 168- to 193-minute time for other acute ischemic stroke, according to JAMA.
- Providers fail to communicate critical information to one another, causing a misdiagnosis.
- A patient is discharged prematurely, before the full picture is understood.
To illustrate how a failure to diagnose can unfold: imagine a man whose wife calls 911 the moment she notices his stroke symptoms. The EMTs assess him en route and communicate their suspicions clearly. At the hospital, however, one of the reviewing physicians fails to share relevant details from the patient’s medical history with the rest of the team. The group concludes he had a severe migraine and sends him home. Within hours, the couple is back, and the damage is irreversible.
In that scenario, the EMTs acted correctly. One physician did not. That distinction is what a legal and medical review is designed to identify.
When LIS Itself Goes Unrecognized
There is another form of negligence that affects LIS patients specifically: being mistaken for someone in a coma or a vegetative state. Because LIS patients cannot move or speak, they are sometimes treated as unresponsive when, in fact, they are fully aware. When families notice signs of consciousness first, such as a flicker of eye movement or a response to sound, and those observations are dismissed, that too warrants scrutiny.
A proper evaluation for locked-in syndrome looks at eye movement, cognitive responsiveness, and the distinction between consciousness and motor function. When that evaluation is skipped or delayed, patients may go without appropriate communication support and care for far longer than necessary.
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What a Legal Review Can Tell You
Not knowing what happened is one of the most painful parts of this experience. A legal review does not commit you to anything. It is simply a way of finding out whether negligence played a role in your loved one’s condition, and what that might mean for your family.
When you sit down with our team for the first time, we will ask you to walk us through what happened: the day of the stroke, what symptoms you noticed, how long it took to get a diagnosis, what the doctors said, and how your life has changed since. If you have medical records, we welcome them, but we can gather evidence later if you do not have them on hand yet.
After gathering your account, we analyze the information carefully. In many cases, we also ask medical experts to review the details. If we find no evidence of malpractice, we will tell you that honestly. If we do find evidence, you will then decide—on your own timeline, without pressure—whether you want to pursue a legal claim.
How Newsome Law Works With Massachusetts Families
The families we work with are not looking for an attorney to hand their case off to and forget. They are looking for someone to stand with them through a process that is unfamiliar, emotionally exhausting, and often frightening.
Our approach begins with getting your story. We believe you are the most important source of information about what happened to your loved one, and we take your account seriously. From there, we retrieve medical records, consult with experts in neurology and stroke care, and build an honest picture of what occurred.
We maintain direct attorney access throughout the process; families are not bounced between assistants or kept in the dark. You will know where things stand.
What a Successful Outcome Can Make Possible
If we establish that malpractice contributed to your loved one’s locked-in syndrome, a settlement or verdict can be used to cover:
- Current and future medical care
- In-home nursing and attendant support
- Adaptive technology and communication devices
- Lost income and earning capacity
- Modifications to your home or vehicle
- Pain and suffering and diminished quality of life
Financial security does not undo what happened. But it does change what is possible for your loved one’s comfort, for their ability to communicate and engage with the world, and for your family’s stability in the years ahead.
Affording Help from a Massachusetts Locked-In Syndrome Attorney
We understand that families in this situation are already managing enormous financial pressure. Hiring a lawyer should not add to that burden.
Newsome Law works on a contingency basis, which means:
- You pay nothing upfront.
- Your initial consultation is completely free.
- We are only paid if we recover compensation for your family.
- You are under no obligation to move forward after the consultation.
You can take the time you need. There is no deadline to decide whether this is the right step for your family.
Take the First Step When You Are Ready
You do not have to have answers before you call us. You do not have to have made any decisions. All we ask is that you tell us what happened, and we will take it from there.
Newsome Law offers free, confidential consultations with no obligation and no pressure. We are here whenever you are ready to talk.
What Our Clients Say
Real stories from families we've helped through difficult times.
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Newsome Law are fantastic! They have been working on my case for the past 3+ years and I have not once had a bad experience with anyone who works there. They have worked tirelessly to help me through my accident and the medical bills that loomed overhead. I am extremely pleased and grateful to have them, fighting on my side during this period in my life.
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Newsome Law Is a step above all the rest. They are not some run-of-the-mill Firm. But rather an experienced Team of established excellence and success. As one of Newsome Law’s grateful clients, they always operated in the best interest of my family. Were always available to take my call , and were compassionate to the pain and needs of my family. Newsome Law is the right Firm for you to choose.
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Newsome Law represented me in a very positive manner. Always professional, courteous, supportive and attentive. They were always able to keep me apprised of the status of my case. The team on my case were always easy to work with and on top of all issues. I never had to wonder where we were at in the process. I would recommend them to anyone needing this type of help in the future.
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I am so pleased to have worked with this firm. The attention to detail, time spent one on one, not feeling like I was just a number and someone truly caring about what was going on with me and my case was more than I could have ever hoped for. I will use this firm again if I ever need one and will recommend to everyone who asks to reach out to Newsome Law if they find they ever need someone to represent them. More than pleased and happy with everyone and everything from the office. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
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