Hawking and his Motor Neurone Disease

By Muhammad Armaan
It was at the beginning of 1960s. While Stephen Hawking was at his final year at Oxford, he had
experienced increasing clumsiness. The other day, he fell on stairs and later, had difficulty in rowing.
Gradually things got even worse. His speech started to slur. During Christmas that year, his family
noticed, and medical investigations begun. His doctor revealed that he had only two years to live!

In the late 1960s, he lost his walking ability and couldn’t hold lectures regularly. Later, he slowly lost
the ability to write, which forced him to develop visual methods for every task. Since Hawking was a
fiercely independent sort of person, it took him some persuasion to use a wheelchair at the end of
the 1960’s.

Near the end of 1960s, his speech deteriorated heavily that he could only be soon understood by his
family members and closest friends. Later on his life, when he couldn’t speak at all, he had to use a
computer program called ‘Equalizer’. Hawking simply could use a switch to select a phrase from a
bank of 2500-3000 words. Originally, he could produce 15 words per minute but when he had to
present a lecture, it was prepared beforehand and sent to the speech synthesizer to be delivered.
Hawking appreciated the release from the need of somebody needing to interpret his speech. He
himself stated, “I can communicate better now than before I lost my voice.

When Hawking was on a visit to the border of France and Switzerland in 1985, he contracted
pneumonia, which was life threatening in the condition he was in. Hawking was such in a bad state
that his wife, Jane, was asked whether he should be given life support. Jane refused, so
consequently, she had to order nurses to provide the round the clock support Hawking required. All
the cost was funded by an American foundation, which is unnamed.

Hawking gradually lost the use of his hand, and by 2005, he began to control his communication
devices with his movement of the cheek muscles. This huge decline meant that there was a chance
of him developing the locked-in syndrome, where his whole body could have been uncapable of
being controlled, including his eyes. This was a dangerous situation where he could also lose control
of his breathing.

By 2009, he could no longer control his wheelchair independently. Some researchers at the Intel chip
company started working on a method that could control his wheelchair according to chin
movements. Even though Hawking could indeed drive his wheelchair, the movement was sporadic
and unpredictable.

Hawking lived a life full of hardship, though he showed gratitude for everything he received. He
helped humanity by his understanding of black holes. He had sheer determination; he continued to
contribute to the world and the beyond.

References:

(Stephen Hawking, 2022)

Larsen, Kristine (2005). Stephen Hawking: a biography

White, Michael; Gribbin, John (2002). Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science