Neurologist has hopes for misdiagnosed brain injury patientsRSS Feed

25 November 2009

A neurologist, who used state of the art imaging to discover that a man thought to be in a coma for 23 years was actually conscious, has said there may be many more similar cases of misdiagnosis across the world.

Neurologist Steven Laureys, who leads the Coma Science Group and Department of Neurology at Liege University Hospital, led the re-examination of Rom Houbens and found that he was not in a vegetative state as previously thought.

Mr Laureys is now promoting a study he published two months ago which claims that patients thought to be in a vegetative state are often misdiagnosed.

"In Germany alone each year some 100,000 people suffer from severe traumatic brain injury," said Mr Laureys.

He said that about 20,000 of these are followed by a coma of three weeks or longer.

According to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, The level of consciousness during this stage is measured by the Glasgow Coma Scale. With scores on this scale varying from three (the person does not respond at all) to 15 (the person is able to walk, talk and is fully aware of their circumstances).

Mr Laureys said an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people a year remaining trapped in an intermediate stage between death and recovery.

"They go on living without ever come back again," he added.

The neurologist is hoping that the imaging used to detect function in Mr Houbens' brain will save many other patients from being misdiagnosed.

News from Serious Law, specialist traumatic brain injury solcitors. ADNFCR-2547-ID-19477608-ADNFCR