Man Trapped In 23-Year 'Coma' Was Conscious

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  An engineering student thought to be in a coma for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it has emerged.Skip related content
  

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  Rom Houben was misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state after a car crash left him totally paralysed.
  

  For the whole time, he was trapped in his own body with no way of letting friends and family know he could hear every word they were saying.
  

  The 46-year-old, who can now tap out computerised messages and read books on a device above his hospital bed, has revealed: "I screamed, but there was nothing to hear.
  

  "All that time I literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.
  

  "I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me - it was my second birth.
  

  "I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy life now people know I am not dead."
  

  His misdiagnosis was discovered by neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys, who fears there may be similar cases all over the world.
  

  He looked at Mr Houben's case again at the University of Liege, Belgium, using state-of-the-art imaging that showed the patient was aware of what was happening around him even though he had lost control of his body.
  

  Dr Laureys, who leads the Coma Science Group, was unavailable for comment when contacted by Sky News Online.
  

  He told the Daily Telegraph: "In Germany alone each year some 100,000 people suffer from severe traumatic brain injury.
  

  "About 20,000 are followed by a coma of three weeks or longer. Some of them die, others regain health.
  

  "But an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people a year, remain trapped in an intermediate stage: they go on living without ever coming back again."
  

  Rom, a martial arts enthusiast who remains in constant care at a facility near Brussels, was repeatedly wrongly assessed in Zolder, Belgium, by doctors using technology available at the time.
  

  They used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly.
  

  The disclosure is likely to renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious.
  

  There have been several cases where people in deep comas have recovered.
  

  Carrie Coons, 86, from New York, regained consciousness 20 years ago.
  

  Days before her recovery, a judge had granted a request for the removal of her feeding tube which had been keeping her alive.
  

Three Killer Indicators Identified That Are Even Worse Than High Cholesterol

Three Killer Indicators Identified That Are Even Worse Than High Cholesterol
ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2009) —
Researchers at the University of Warwick have identified a particular combination of health problems that can double the risk of heart attack and cause a three-fold increase in the risk of mortality.

The team, led by Assistant Clinical Professor of Public Health at Warwick Medical School Dr Oscar Franco, has discovered that simultaneously having obesity, high blood pressure and high blood sugar are the most dangerous combination of health factors when developing metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a combination of medical disorders that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
The main five health problems normally associated with metabolic syndrome are abnormal levels of blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglyceride levels (the chemical form in which fat exists in the body), too much sugar in the blood and central obesity (excess of fat around the waistline).
In his study, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, Dr Franco has identified the most dangerous combination of these conditions to be central obesity, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. People who have all three of these conditions are twice as likely to have a heart attack and three times more likely to die earlier than the general population.
His team looked at 3,078 people to track the prevalence and progress of metabolic syndrome as part of the Framingham Offspring Study.
He said: "Metabolic syndrome is a highly prevalent condition that is increasing dramatically and affects a large portion of the middle-age population. Not all individuals enter the syndrome with identical combination of factors. Certain combinations confer higher risks of incident cardiovascular disease and mortality."
Dr Franco said the combination of high blood pressure, central obesity and hyperglycemia (high blood sugar ) showed a significantly higher risk compared to the others.
He added: "Intense efforts are needed to identify populations with these particular combinations and to provide them with adequate treatment at the early stages of disease."
Three Killer Indicators Identified That Are Even Worse Than High Cholesterol