[Jim Noble]

Cranford's use of the term Permanent Vegetative State is interesting.

When Fred Plum coined the term and published it, in 1972, the term was "Persistent Vegetative State, meaningthat there were patients who, in recovery from coma, "stalled" before full recovery for various, though long, periods of time.

The morphing of the term to "Permanent" has not been published or accepted to my knowledge.

[Trinity_Tx]

The American Academy of Neurology recently adopted the position that the VS should be termed "persistent" at 1 month, and considered "permanent" after 3 months following nontraumatic causes of unconsciousness and after 12 months following traumatic injury [27]. However, rare exceptions to this have been cited. (longest documented was 3 years - Cranford also misdiagnosed 1 pt in '79 - he came out of it after 18 months, I think. His CT scan was not consistent with the PVS dx.)

Multi-Society Task Force on PVS: : Medical aspects of the persistent vegetative state: statement of a multi-society task force. N Engl J Med. 1994;330:1467-91