Trapped in his own body for 23 years - the coma victim who screamed unheard

In 1983, Rom Houben was in a car crashed that lead doctors to diagnose him as being in a vegetative state. It was presumed for 23 years that he was in this state, leading everyone to believe he had no cognitive thought or emotion. Houben, however, had retained the ability to think and understand everything told to him, but was unable to communicate or even move his body. At the time, Belgian doctors had used the Glascow Coma Scale to evaluate the extent of Houben’s coma, but incorrectly assessed him and missed clues that his brain activity was still normal. Stuck like this for over two decades, it was finally discovered by Steven Laurey, a neurologist at the University of Liege in Belgium, that Houben’s neurological activity was functioning almost normally. Using advanced scanning systems, Laurey was evaluating Houben was he stumbled upon this discovery, which Houben described as “[his] second birth.” Three years later, Houben is now able to communicate via a finger and a touchscreen pad and has also achieved some movement as a result of physical therapy. Now, he is hoping to write a book detailing his experience and of course, focusing on the day it was discovered he was not in a vegetative state.

I came across this article when doing some research for the last SNBAL, and I think it is not only remarkable, but also vital in evaluating coma patients these days. It proves that not all patients who are diagnosed as being vegetative lack complete cognitive ability. In this case, Houben was misdiagnosed and lived through hell for 23 years. This story exemplifies the need for stricter testing to be conducted when diagnosing coma patients because as Laurey put it, “Once someone is labelled as being without consciousness, it is very hard to get rid of that.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/23/man-trapped-coma-23-years

Nathan Poon
VTPP 434 - 502