Between 2008 and 2018, 209 brain-damaged patients subsequently diagnosed as MCS were admitted into the University Hospital of Liege, including 19 patients who were assessed at two time points using neuroimaging techniques and repeated Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). Inclusion criteria were: >28 days post-injury when first assessed; diagnosis made based on at least 5 CRS-R, diagnosed in MCS- during the first week of assessment and later diagnosed in MCS+ during the second week of assessments. Three patients met our inclusion criteria (age: 23-37 years-old, two TBI, time since onset: 10 months to 5 years). These three patients in MCS- during their first week of assessment, later recovered command following when reassessed during a second week of evaluations (26-31 months later).
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Liege and written informed consents for study participation and data publication have been obtained from the patients' legal representatives as well as from the healthy control subjects.