Personality traits after prolonged vegetative state. Reflections on "Unexpected Improvement after Prolonged Post-traumatic Vegetative State" by W. Arts, H. van Dongen, J. Meulstee.

The consequences of the trauma on the personality traits of the case described by Arts et al. are analysed. Among the biological factors which favoured the restoration of consciousness, youth, normal pretraumatic personality as well as the location and extent of the brain lesions have been of special importance. The psychopathological changes mainly consisted in an impairment of higher mental functions with intellectual regression, loss of abstraction ability and a severe deficit of recall and memory. The pragmatical and ethical consequences of this case are discussed.