BRUSSELS (AP) -- The mother of a Belgian man who was thought to have been in a coma, then a vegetative state, says it was neither.
She says her son was fully conscious for more than two decades, but could not respond because he was paralyzed.
The now 46-year-old man was injured in a car crash in 1983. Despite doctors' diagnoses, the family believed he was conscious and sought second opinions, taking him to the U.S. for tests five times.
They eventually got in touch with Belgium's Coma Science Group, who gave the man a PET scan that indicated he was conscious.
The family and the scientists say they eventually managed to communicate with him using computer devices, and he's now able to spell words with his fingers using a touch-screen.
He recently used the device to tell a reporter for the German magazine Der Spiegel: "I screamed but there was nothing to hear." And now he's started writing a book on his experiences.
A doctor who discovered that a Belgian man had been wrongly diagnosed as vegetative says he is reexamining dozens of other cases.
Dr. Steven Laureys says he has discovered some degree of consciousness using state-of-the-art equipment in other patients but won't say how many. He looks at about 50 cases a year but none are as extreme as that of Rom Houben, who was fully conscious inside a paralyzed body. Many center on the fine distinction between a vegetative state and minimal consciousness.
He said Tuesday that: "It is very difficult to tell the difference."
