People would not recover from a prion disease. These people are regaining consciousness, even though they are impaired.
Prion disease don’t always kill quickly. Some forms take more than 40 years before death occurs. Prior to that, the disease can cause lack of sleep or extended sleeping through damage to the sleep center of the brain. An excellent book that describes the disease is this one: The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery by D. T. Max.