Posted on 11/23/2009 10:16:32 AM PST by Artemis Webb
BRUSSELS – A mother says her son has emerged from what doctors thought was a vegetative state to say he was fully conscious for 23 years but could not respond because he was paralyzed.
Rom Houben had a car crash in 1983 and doctors thought he had sunk into an apparent coma. Still, his family continued to believe their son was conscious and had sought further medical advice.
Dr. Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse said Houben's mother finally met Belgian expert Steven Laureys, who realized that the medical diagnosis for her son was wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
well well...
It sounds like a fate worst than death
I’ve always wondered if Hans Solo was aware when he was a wall decoration for Jabba.
‘I screamed, but there was nothing to hear’: Man trapped in 23-year ‘coma’ reveals horror of being unable to tell doctors he was conscious
By Allan Hall
Last updated at 2:58 PM on 23rd November 2009
A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.
Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them - but could make no sound.
‘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, tapping his tale out with the aid of a computer.
‘I dreamed myself away’: Rom Houben, now 46, has told of the nightmare of being trapped in a paralysed body, unable to tell doctors that he was awake, for 23 years
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.
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.
Rom said he wants to enjoy life again - now that his friends and family know he is not in a coma after all
Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983.
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.
‘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’
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.
Saw this story the other day. What a nightmare ordeal.
I wonder what effect 23 years of total inactivity will have had on his body? We are told activity keeps the body healthy but it seems that no wear and tear for 23 years would have its benefits too. He probably has the joints of a twenty-something man rather of a forty-something. He probably has the skin of a twenty something thanks to no sun exposure. And probably no lines on his face which would have been expressionless. If they choose to publish pics it will be interesting to see what he looks like, and interesting to hear how his body feels to him now.
I’d claim that too, just to see which relatives started being really nice to me.
He is still paralyzed, they just have a computer hooked up that he can communicate with using small hand motions.
They say that it was discovered that he had been conscious when he told them via computer ... but after 23 years, how did the man know how to use a computer to communicate? I mean, personal computers were not widely used 23 years ago.
On the other hand, how did they train him to use a computer? If they found out he was conscious via computer, how did they know that he was aware enough to use a computer?
Does anyone else understand my confusion, or can you set me on the facts so that I can follow how this occurred?
In another account of this story I heard, a doctor(s) performed a brain scan and noticed regions of his brain that were active when they shouldn't have been. They proceeded from there.
I think the timeline is this:
car crash
paralyzation
assumption that he was in a coma due to “standard coma testing”
mother secures brain scan with new dr - albeit 20 odd years later
brain scan shows normal activity
communications begin
computer communications are established
story published
original dr looks like asshole
Socialized medical care - here we come!
Computers were used in offices in the mid-80’s.
I remember having a computer dumped on my desk, plugged in, turned on and told to have at it - with no training! So he might have had exposure to computers prior to his accident.
YAY MOM
I think this is the inspiration for Metallica’s ‘One’.
I would say that’s a pretty youthful looking face but not unusually so for a 40 something year old. What do you think?
What’s interesting is that he has the labio-nasal creases (the lines that run from your nose to the corner of your mouth) that would be typical of someone his age, but I wonder how he could have gotten them since he didn’t speak or smile? They must just be part of the aging process.
I was also taking into consideration that he was not in the US where computers caught on before they did elsewhere. Even then, computers were not common, but you could be absolutely correct that he had some exposure prior to going silent for 23 years.
Thanks for helping me get a better picture.
They said they ran all the standard tests and they all indicated he was a vegetable. Except for this latest test.....
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