Article

The differential diagnosis between vegetative state and minimally conscious state
is still complex and the development of an evaluation systems is one of the
challenging tasks for researchers and professionals. The Coma Recovery
Scale-revised is considered
the gold standard for clinical/behavioral assessment
and for the differential diagnosis of patients with disorder of consciousness.
However, the scale presents some limitations in that (i) scores may partially
overlap between different diagnoses and (ii) there is an underlying assumption
that if a patient is able to show higher-level behaviors, he /she is also able to
show lower-level responses. In the present study, a procedure to calculate a
modified Coma Recovery Scale-revised score is presented that attempts to avoid
these problems. To exemplify this new scoring approach, 60 patients with disorder
of consciousness were studied and the results showed the usefulness of the Modified Score.

Langue : ANGLAIS