crazy

[bagochips]

Link

Rom Houben: Patient trapped in a 23-year 'coma' was conscious all along

By Allan Hall

Last updated at 1:27 PM on 23rd November 2009

* Comments (167)

* Add to My Stories

A car crash victim diagnosed as being in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time.

Rom Houben was paralysed but had no way of letting doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying.

'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state.

'I dreamed myself away,' he added.

46-year-old Rom Houbne was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (pictured posed by model)

Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (picture posed by model)

Doctors used a range of coma tests before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was 'extinct'.

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

More...

* Girl, 2, makes extraordinary recovery after being partially paralysed by a stroke

* Girl forced to spend EVERY night in hospital after developing unique diabetic condition

* It happened to me: A driver on drugs killed my son

Mr Houben described the moment as 'my second birth'. Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

Mr Houben said: 'All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.'

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

'Medical advances caught up with him,' said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world.

The disclosure will also renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious.

Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983.

'I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me - it was my second birth.

'I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead'

Doctors in Zolder, Belgium, used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly.

Only a re-evaluation of his case at the University of Liege discovered that he had lost control of his body but was still fully aware of what was happening.

He is never likely to leave hospital, but as well as his computer he now has a special device above his bed which lets him read books while lying down.

Mr Houben said: 'I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me - it was my second birth.

'I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead.'

Dr Laureys's new study claims that patients classed as in a vegetative state are often misdiagnosed.

'Anyone who bears the stamp of "unconscious" just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again,' he said.

The doctor, who leads the Coma Science Group and Department of Neurology at Liege University Hospital, found Mr Houben's brain was still working by using state-of-the-art imaging.

He plans to use the case to highlight what he considers may be similar examples around the world.

Dr Laureys said: 'In Germany alone each year some 100,000 people suffer from severe traumatic brain injury.

'About 20,000 are followed by a coma of three weeks or longer. Some of them die, others regain health.

'But an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people a year remain trapped in an intermediate stage - they go on living without ever coming back again.'

Supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide argue that people who have lain in persistent vegetative states for years should be given the opportunity to have crucial medical support withdrawn because of the 'indignity' of their condition.

But there have been several cases in which people judged to be in vegetative states or deep comas have recovered.

Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year, took small amounts of food by mouth and engaged in conversation.

Only days before her recovery, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of the feeding tube which had been keeping her alive.

In the UK in 1993, doctors switched off the life support system keeping alive Tony Bland, a 22-year- old who had been in a coma for three years following the Hillsborough disaster.

Dr Laureys was not available for comment yesterday and it is not clear why he thought Mr Houben should have the hi-tech screening when so many years had passed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1230092/Rom-Houben-Patient-trapped-23-year-coma-conscious-along.html#ixzz0Xgu94YFF

[bouche]

wasn't this the plot of a Twilight Zone episode?

[Schwa.]

Metallica's "One" is playing in my head while I read this.

[AD]

That's possibly the worst thing that could happen to a person.

[backbacon]

I just read about this somewhere. That is horrible! Poor kid. What an interesting read his book will be.

[bouche]

I figure someone would go crazy if trapped in the mind like that.

[bagochips]

Link

Mr Houben said that at first he felt angry at his powerlessness, but eventually learned to live with it.

"Other people had an opinion of me," Mr Houben, now 46, told the BBC.

"I knew what I could do and what I was capable of but other people had a rather pathetic image of me. I had to learn to be patient and now finally we are on an equal footing."

'He's an optimist'

It was only in 2006 that a scan revealed Mr Houben's brain was in fact almost entirely functioning.

He now communicates by using a special keyboard attached to his wheelchair.

His mother, Fina Houben, told the BBC that she always believed her son could communicate.

"He is not depressed he is an optimist," she said. "He wants to get out of life what he can."

The BBC's Dominic Hughes, in Belgium, says the case raises the issue of how many other people believed to be in comas are actually trapped inside their bodies, desperate to communicate.

Mr Houben's story was revealed in a paper written by Steven Laureys, a doctor at Liege University who wrote a recent paper that detailed the case.

In it, Mr Laureys said that in about 40% of cases in which people are classified as being in a vegetative state, closer inspection reveals signs of consciousness.

40%!

[Velvet]

"Mr Laureys said that in about 40% of cases in which people are classified as being in a vegetative state, closer inspection reveals signs of consciousness."

I'll bet there are a lot of people that are totally freaking out about this right now, for several different reasons.

[bouche]

Well-known skeptic, James Randy, is enraged at the likelihood that there is some abuse of facilitated communication going on here. This is pretty interesting when you look at the following vid at the cued-up section.

I really can't believe that his health-care worker has the impressive power of reading his mind when and types out what he is thinking.

any thoughts on this subject?

EDIT to ADD: More on this today from Wired

[bouche]

Rethinking Unconscious Rethought: ‘Coma Man’ Worst Medical Reporting Ever

[larry_llama]

this is the stupidest thing I have ever seen

it turns out my dog knows english... in fact, he's typing this message. but i had to hold his paw to help him.

[bouche]

this is the stupidest thing I have ever seen

it turns out my dog knows english... in fact, he's typing this message. but i had to hold his paw to help him.

Facilitated Communication is something that ms.hux does every day with our doggie Abbey. You wouldn't believe what abbey says!