By Benedict Carey Advertising `In my head, I churn over every sentence ten times, delete a word, add an adjective, and learn my text by heart, paragraph by paragraph,` Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote in his memoir, `The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.` In the book, Bauby, a journalist and editor, recalled his life before and after a paralyzing spinal injury that left him virtually unable to move a muscle; he tapped out the book letter by letter, by blinking an eyelid. Thousands of people are reduced to similarly painstaking means of communication as a result of injuries suffered in accidents or combat, of strokes, or of neurodegenerative disorders like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, that...
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