Doctors Communicate With Vegetative Patients

Doctors in U.K. and Belgium are able to read the brain signals of patients in persistent vegetative states.
Doctors Communicate With Vegetative Patients
Belgian man Rom Houben and his mother Josephine Nicolaas Houben are pictured at the hospital in Heusden-Zolder, on Nov. 25, 2009. Rom Houben, who is thought to have been in a coma for 23 years, has told of his 'second birth' after doctors realized he was in fact conscious. Medical staff at a hospital in Liege, eastern Belgium, believed Rom Houben had been left in a vegetative state by a serious car accident in 1983, but he was simply paralyzed and unable to communicate. Doctors in the U.K. and Belgium are discovering that vegetative patients are conscious and able to communicate. Julien Warnand/AFP/Getty Images
Epoch Times Staff
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<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/93498483ukAbelgium.jpg" alt="Belgian man Rom Houben and his mother Josephine Nicolaas Houben are pictured at the hospital in Heusden-Zolder, on Nov. 25, 2009. Rom Houben, who is thought to have been in a coma for 23 years, has told of his 'second birth' after doctors realized he was in fact conscious. Medical staff at a hospital in Liege, eastern Belgium, believed Rom Houben had been left in a vegetative state by a serious car accident in 1983, but he was simply paralyzed and unable to communicate. Doctors in the U.K. and Belgium are discovering that vegetative patients are conscious and able to communicate. (Julien Warnand/AFP/Getty Images)" title="Belgian man Rom Houben and his mother Josephine Nicolaas Houben are pictured at the hospital in Heusden-Zolder, on Nov. 25, 2009. Rom Houben, who is thought to have been in a coma for 23 years, has told of his 'second birth' after doctors realized he was in fact conscious. Medical staff at a hospital in Liege, eastern Belgium, believed Rom Houben had been left in a vegetative state by a serious car accident in 1983, but he was simply paralyzed and unable to communicate. Doctors in the U.K. and Belgium are discovering that vegetative patients are conscious and able to communicate. (Julien Warnand/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1823408"/></a>
Belgian man Rom Houben and his mother Josephine Nicolaas Houben are pictured at the hospital in Heusden-Zolder, on Nov. 25, 2009. Rom Houben, who is thought to have been in a coma for 23 years, has told of his 'second birth' after doctors realized he was in fact conscious. Medical staff at a hospital in Liege, eastern Belgium, believed Rom Houben had been left in a vegetative state by a serious car accident in 1983, but he was simply paralyzed and unable to communicate. Doctors in the U.K. and Belgium are discovering that vegetative patients are conscious and able to communicate. (Julien Warnand/AFP/Getty Images)
Epoch Times Staff
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