When he was 23 the BelgianRom Houben, Engineering student and martial arts expert, suffered a car accident. The doctors who treated him diagnosed apersistent vegetative state. From the evidence there was no doubt: Rom was immersed in airreversible coma. Thus it remained for 20 years until in 2006 the neurologistSteven Laureys, from the University of Liège, decided to revise Rom Houben’s diagnosis using the most advanced technology. State-of-the-art scans showed that his brain was working perfectly normally. They say Houben would have been living the“captivity syndrome”, trapped in his own fully conscious body, seeing and hearing everything that was happening around him but without being able to communicate.
Since then Rom Houben has progressively improved. Now, at 46 years old,communicates by pressing keys on a touch screenwith the help of a facilitator. In this way he has explained “the extremely difficult situation that the experience had been for him, an immense feeling of frustration and great anger”, according to neuropsychologist Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, who is part of the team of researchers that helps him in his recovery. According to the doctors, Houben is still able to communicate in three languages: French, Flemish and English, just as he did before the accident.
A recent study ofComa Science Group, directed by Professor Laureys, on a hundred patients has shown that un 40% of people who consider themselves to be in a vegetative state are actually aware of their surroundings and of themselves, to varying degrees. East“state of minimal consciousness”(MCS, according to the acronym in English), different from coma, is a notion that has only been used since 2002 by medicine, according to scientists at the University of Liège, who hope that the Houben case will help avoid new misdiagnoses.
However, the news of Houben has unleashed a certaincontroversyin the scientific community. Neurologists such as Steven Novella of Yale University argue that using a facilitator does not confirm that the Belgian can actually communicate and that there is no evidence that he can.
