‘Vegetative’ Man Has His Say

Scott Routley hasn’t spoken or even followed family members with his eyes since his car accident 12 years ago. But he managed to indicate to doctors this spring that he was not in pain.

And he did it by imagining his playing tennis as researchers watched for certain areas of his brain scan to light up during an fMRI, something he and neuroscientist Adrian Owen worked out as a signal for “no” over a series of sessions. The breakthrough technique proved Routley isn’t in a vegetative state, as doctors thought. He’s aware of the world around him.

“Some people can look like they’re vegetative but still have awareness inside their head. I think it’s a very important finding,” said Bryan Young, the neurologist at University Hospital in London, Ontario, who has treated Routley for the past decade.

“It really made the point to me that we need to go beyond the clinical evaluation to be conclusive about whether a patient is really in a vegetative state or not.”

Young met Routley, 39, after he came out of his coma 10 years ago. The car-crash victim had severe damage to both brain hemispheres, and woke up in what doctors thought to be a vegetative state, which the Mayo Clinic defines as resulting from severe brain damage and renders a person “unaware of his or her surroundings.”

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