Ethics of Technology-Assisted Neurocognitive Rehabilitation

The integration of invasive, non-invasive, and external technology into healthcare has significantly transformed neurocognitive rehabilitation. It has transformed the relationship between the patients and their care providers, caretakers, and digital agents of care. It can aid the rehabilitating agents at all levels of intervention, stages of patient’s response, and interactions between them and the patients. While technology can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of neurocognitive rehabilitation, it raises fundamental ethical issues. The three types of technology – invasive, noninvasive, and external – pose different types of issues that must be addressed by the care providers, caretakers, the digital agents, and the patients. The ethical issues must be balanced against the potential efficiency and effectiveness of the technologies in making intervention decisions. The chapter presents an Ontology of Ethics of Technology-Driven Neurocognitive Rehabilitation as a framework to parse these complex issues clearly, concisely, and comprehensively. It provides a roadmap to address the ethics systemically and systematically. Technology-assisted neurocognitive rehabilitation can deeply affect the mind, body, and spirit of the patient. It is an emerging field and there is little literature on its ethics. The framework can be used to develop a roadmap for research, policies, and practice.