Psience Quest

Quote:Salgado woke on Jan. 18, 2016, about three months after his accident, and one day after he turned 22. He was living in a special unit for people on life support, most of whom have feeding and breathing tubes.

Salgado had defied the odds. Not only had he lived, he was emerging from his semiconscious state. But his is not a story about a miracle — it’s a story about medicine’s inability to accurately diagnose consciousness and treat those who do wake up but linger in a purgatory between wakefulness and nothingness.

About 40% of the people diagnosed as being in a vegetative state — a neurological condition in which patients are awake but show no signs of being aware of themselves or their environment — are conscious at least some of the time, according to a growing body of research. But like Salgado, they have no way of indicating they’re aware.