facilitated communication

Vegetative man not communicating after all

It was horrible to imagine. A Belgian man, uncommunicative since a car accident left him paralyzed in 1983, suddenly seemed to have a message to convey last November with the help of a speech therapist. He was not unconscious, he indicated. He was trapped.

Now, neurologist Steven Laureys, one of Rom Houben's doctors who diagnosed the patient as conscious based on bedside tests performed four years ago, is telling reporters the speech therapist got it wrong. While recent brain scans of Houben do show brain activity and even consciousness, Houben is not communicating, Laureys says.

"We did not … Read more