Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the patient's brain activity was mapped while he was asked to answer yes and no questions such as "Is your father's name Thomas?".
The researchers were astonished when they saw the results of the patient's scan. He
was able to correctly answer the questions that were asked by simply changing his thoughts, which they then decoded using our fMRI technique
The new technique can decode the brain's answers to such questions in healthy, non-vegetative, participants with 100 per cent accuracy.
But it has never before been tried in a patient who is in coma, hence, cannot move or speak.
In a three-year study, 23 patients diagnosed as vegetative were scanned. The new technique was able to detect signs of awareness in four of these cases.
However the researchers only managed to communicate, in the yes, no fashion, with one of the patients.
It's early days, but in future we hope to develop this technique to allow some patients to express their feelings and thoughts, control their environment and increase their quality of life
For example, patients who are aware, but cannot move or speak, could be asked if they are feeling any pain, allowing doctors to decide when painkillers should be administered
Recently, a Belgian man named Rom Houben who was wrongly diagnosed as comatose for 23years, is now planning to write a book about his extraordinary story. Since 2006, when his true condition was correctly diagnosed, Houben has regained enough coordination to allow him to use a finger, when aided, to tap out messages on a special computer keyboard.
Published in
New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/vegetative-man-communicates-via-scan/story-e6frfkui-1225826619059?from=news+newsletter_rss
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Belgian man named Rom Houben was thought to have been in a coma (vegetative state) for 23 years (from 23 years of age to 46), however he was simply paralysed and unable to communicate. Finally doctors realised he was, in fact, conscious.
Cut off from the world, he passed his time in thought for years. He could hear what was being said around him throughout but was unable to respond.
"Doctors and nurses tried to speak to me and eventually gave up" The worst moment came when his mother and sister told him of the death of his father and though he wanted to weep, his body remained motionless.
After the correction of the diagnosis, he has regained enough coordination to allow him to use a finger, when aided, to use a special computer keyboard. Using a specially-adapted computer to type messages, Houben has been able to describe the ordeal he endured for more than two decades. He told that he meditated to pass the long years trapped in his own body. "I would scream, but no sound would come out," he said, "I will never forget the day they finally discovered what was wrong -- it was my second birth."
Houben is still unable to move, but he can read thanks to a device set up over his bed, and he communicates through a keyboard. "I want to read, to talk to my friends with the computer and to live life now people know I'm not dead," he said
There are too many cases inaccurately diagnosed coma -- more than 40 per cent in certain categories of sufferers. It is vital, with any coma patient, to discover whether they have plunged into a vegetative state or if there is some minimal consciousness
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/man-in-false-coma-plans-memoirs/story-e6frfkui-1225803497327
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/rom-houben-spent-more-than-twenty-years-in-what-doctors-thought-was-a-coma-but-he-was-actually-awake-and-paralysed/story-e6frf7jo-1225803146317
http://www.news.com.au/world/man-misdiagnosed-as-being-in-coma-for-23-years/story-e6frfkyi-1225803256170
