Letters

Misdiagnosing the persistent vegetative state

EDITOR,--Keith Andrews and colleagues draw attention to an important issue--namely, the correct diagnosis of patients who remain apparently unaware months after sustaining acute brain damage.¹ Some caution is needed in interpreting their data.

The authors use the term "persistent vegetative state" loosely. Although a persistent vegetative state cannot be diagnosed until at least 12 months have passed from the onset of coma,² nine of the 16 patients whom the authors consider to have been misdiagnosed and whose details they give had been in a coma for less than 12 months. Therefore over half of the misdiagnoses in the study may simply reflect careless and incorrect use of the term persistent vegetative state by referring clinicians, with the patients' recovery coinciding with admission to the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability.

The security of the original diagnosis was not . . . [Full text of this article]

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Related Article

Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state: retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit

Keith Andrews, Lesley Murphy, Ros Munday, and Clare Littlewood
BMJ 1996 313: 13-16. [Abstract] [Full Text]