Post 3 — N=1 Is Not a Reason to Ignore Someone
When Complexity Meets the Standardized Box An educational series about individualized care, medical complexity, system design, and the human life at the center. Post 3 — N=1 Is Not a Reason to Ignore Someone ASSESSMENT · RESEARCH · OUTLIERS What happens when someone’s medical reality is too unusual for the available categories? In research, N=1 refers to a single observation or individual. My son Alex is an example of why studying an individual carefully can be enormously informative. He sustained an exceptionally complex combination of injuries involving the brainstem, cervicomedullary junction, and upper cervical spinal cord. He has profound physical dependence, intact cognition, unusual autonomic responses, and a respiratory system supported primarily through diaphragm pacing. Yet Alex has remained remarkably stable at home for more than two decades. That stability didn’t happen because his needs were simple. It happened through observation, clinical collaboration, learning, a...
