Eideard

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A Belgian man who stunned the world last year by apparently communicating after 23 years in a coma cannot in fact do so, researchers say.

The doctor who believed that Rom Houben was communicating through a facilitator now says the method does not work.

Dr Steven Laureys told the BBC: “The story of Rom is about the diagnosis of consciousness, not communication…”

Dr Laureys, a neurologist at Liege University Hospital in Belgium, had earlier established that Mr Houben, was more conscious than doctors had previously thought – and that is still thought to be the case.

But he also believed that his interaction with the speech therapist was genuine. Following further study, however, Dr Laureys says the method does not work.

He told the BBC that a series of tests on a group of coma patients, including Mr Houben, had concluded that the method was after all false…

“It’s like using an Ouija board,” Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told Associated Press…

“I hope Rom and his family will stay as an example” of how hard it is to pick up the signs of consciousness, Dr Laureys told the Associated Press. “Even when we know that patients are conscious, we don’t know if there is pain or suffering or what they are feeling.”

First, credit Dr. Laurys for the integrity to challenge his initial conclusions. Introducing sophisticated testing proved his hopes incorrect – and he’s offered that updated information to the medical community and the world at large.

Finally, understand that science always demands reproducible, verifiable results before data is accepted as fact. There is significant difference between this process and the “political” skepticism in fashion among those usually one step removed from creationism in their anti-science ideology.

After 3 years of therapy, Rom Houben communicates via touchscreen – with 1 finger
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

For 23 years Rom Houben was imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen.

Doctors presumed he was in a vegetative state following a near-fatal car crash in 1983. They believed he could feel nothing and hear nothing. For 23 years.

Then a neurologist, Steven Laureys, who decided to take a radical look at the state of diagnosed coma patients, released him from his torture. Using a state-of-the-art scanning system, Laureys found to his amazement that his brain was functioning almost normally.

Laureys…discovered that although Houben was completely paralysed, he was also completely conscious — it was just that he was unable to communicate the fact…

Houben realised when he came round after his accident, which had caused his heart to stop and his brain to be starved of oxygen for several minutes, that his body was paralysed. Although he could hear every word his doctors spoke, he could not communicate with them.

“I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” he said, via his keyboard…

Laureys concluded that coma patients are misdiagnosed “on a disturbingly regular basis”. He examined 44 patients believed to be in a vegetative state, and found that 18 of them responded to communication.

“Once someone is labelled as being without consciousness, it is very hard to get rid of that,” he told Der Spiegel.

Here is a medical instance where extra attention, additional testing over time, may produce dramatic results. Very different from care designed only to extend the process of dying.

The story is terrible – of course – 23 years trapped inside indifference because no one knew he was alive and conscious within a dysfunctional body. RTFA. And join the world of praise for Steven Laureys whose care and curiosity reopened the door to life for Rom Houben.