Belgian in 'coma' for 23 yrs was conscious

In a case thought likely to reopen the debate over when the decision should be made to terminate the lives of those in comas, it has been publicly revealed that a Belgian man whom doctors thought was in a coma for 23 years was conscious all along.

Medical staff thought Rom Houben, now 46, had sunk irretrievably into a coma after he was injured in a near-fatal car crash in 1983.

But a state-of-the-art scanning system showed that Mr Houben's brain was functioning almost normally.

The discovery took place three years ago but only recently came to light after a published study on the misdiagnosis of people with consciousness disorders, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

A doctor at Belgium's University of Liege who discovered that Mr Houben had been misdiagnosed said his case was not an isolated one.

Mr Houben's story was revealed in a paper written by Steven Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liège in Belgium, who wrote a recent paper that detailed the case.

The study said although a 23-year error was highly unusual, incidents of patients wrongly diagnosed with consciousness disorders were far too common.

'Second birth'

Mr Houben, who can now communicate by using a special keyboard, has described how his body did not respond when he woke up after the accident.

He said he felt powerless as doctors and nurses tried to speak to him before giving up hope, and that he "dreamt the time away" as the years passed.

It was only in 2006 that a scan revealed that although Mr Houben was paralysed, his brain was in fact almost entirely functioning.

"I will never forget the day they discovered me," Mr Houben was quoted as saying. "It was like a second birth."

There is little hope that his physical condition will improve, but his 73-year-old mother said she refuses to give up.

"We continue to search and search. For 26 years already."

- NZ HERALD STAFF