#Trapped in his own body for 23 years - the coma victim who screamed unheard
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Trapped in his own body for 23 years - the coma victim who screamed
unheard
• Misdiagnosed man's tale of rebirth thanks to doctor
• Total paralysis masked fully functioning brain
For 23 years Rom Houben was imprisoned in his own body. He saw his
doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he
listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver
the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was
unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his
head or weep, he could only listen.
Doctors presumed he was in a vegetative state following a near-fatal car
crash in 1983. They believed he could feel nothing and hear nothing. For
23 years.
Then a neurologist, Steven Laureys, who decided to take a radical look at
the state of diagnosed coma patients, released him from his torture.
Using a state-of-the-art scanning system, Laureys found to his amazement
that his brain was functioning almost normally.
"I had dreamed myself away," said Houben, now 46, whose real "state" was
discovered three years ago, according to a report in the German magazine
Der Spiegel this week.
Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liege in Belgium, published a
study in BMC Neurology earlier this year saying Houben could be one of
many cases of falsely diagnosed comas around the world. He discovered
that although Houben was completely paralysed, he was also completely
conscious — it was just that he was unable to communicate the fact.
Houben now communicates with one finger and a special touchscreen on his
wheelchair – he has developed some movement with the help of intense
physiotherapy over the last three years.
He realised when he came round after his accident, which had caused his
heart to stop and his brain to be starved of oxygen for several minutes,
that his body was paralysed. Although he could hear every word his
doctors spoke, he could not communicate with them.
"I screamed, but there was nothing to hear," he said, via his keyboard.
The Belgian former engineering student, who speaks four languages, said
he coped with being effectively trapped in his own body by meditating. He
told doctors he had "travelled with my thoughts into the past, or into
another existence altogether". Sometimes, he said, "I was only my
consciousness and nothing else".
The moment it was discovered he was not in a vegetative state, said
Houben, was like being born again. "I'll never forget the day that they
discovered me," he said. "It was my second birth".
Experts say Laureys' findings are likely to reopen the debate over when
the decision should be made to terminate the lives of those in comas who
appear to be unconscious but may have almost fully-functioning brains.
Belgian doctors used an internationally-accepted scale to monitor
Houben's state over the years. Known as the Glasgow Coma Scale, it
requires assessment of the eyes, verbal and motor responses. But they
failed to assess him correctly and missed signs that his brain was still
functioning.
Last night his mother, Fina, said in an interview with Belgian RTBF that
they had taken him to the US five times for reexamination. The
breakthrough came when it became clear that Houben could indicate yes and
no with his foot.
"Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned
to live with it," he tapped out on to the screen during an interview with
the Belgian network last night, AP reported.
Laureys, who is head of the Coma Science Group and department of
neurology at Liege University hospital, has advised on several prominent
coma cases, such as the American Terri Schiavo, whose life support was
withdrawn in 2005 after 15 years in a coma.
Laureys concluded that coma patients are misdiagnosed "on a disturbingly
regular basis". He examined 44 patients believed to be in a vegetative
state, and found that 18 of them responded to communication.
"Once someone is labelled as being without consciousness, it is very hard
to get rid of that," he told Der Spiegel.
He said patients suspected of being in a non-reversible coma should be
"tested 10 times" and that comas, like sleep, have different stages and
need to be monitored.
Houben hopes to write a book detailing his trauma and his "rebirth".
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