Public perception of the vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome: a crowdsourced study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The vegetative state (VS)/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) denotes brain-injured, awake patients who are seemingly without awareness. Still, up to 15% of these patients show signs of covert consciousness when examined by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or EEG, which is known as cognitive motor dissociation (CMD). Experts often prefer the term unresponsive wakefulness syndrome to avoid the negative connotations associated with vegetative state and to highlight the possibility for CMD. However, the perception of VS/UWS by the public has never been studied systematically.

Methods

Using an online crowdsourcing platform, we recruited 1,297 lay people from 32 countries. We investigated if vegetative state and unresponsive wake

SUBMITTER: Kondziella D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6408911 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature