• Sarah Wannez, Olivia Gosseries, Deborah Azzolini, Charlotte Martial, Helena Cassol, Charlène Aubinet, Jitka Annen, Géraldine Martens, Olivier Bodart, Lizette Heine, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Aurore Thibaut, Camille Chatelle, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Athena Demertzi, Caroline Schnakers, Anne-Françoise Donneau, and Steven Laureys.
• a Coma Science Group, GIGA-Consciousness and Neurology Department , University of Liège , Liège , Belgium.
• Neuropsychol Rehabil. 2018 Dec 1; 28 (8): 1350-1359.

AbstractDifferent behavioural signs of consciousness can distinguish patients with an unresponsive wakefulness syndrome from patients in minimally conscious state (MCS). The Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) is the most sensitive scale to differentiate the different altered states of consciousness and eleven items detect the MCS. The aim of this study is to document the prevalence of these items. We analysed behavioural assessments of 282 patients diagnosed in MCS based on the CRS-R. Results showed that some items are particularly frequent among patients in MCS, namely fixation, visual pursuit, and reproducible movement to command, which were observed in more than 50% of patients. These responses were also the most probably observed items when the patients only showed one sign of consciousness. On the other hand, some items were rarely or never observed alone, e.g., object localisation (reaching), object manipulation, intelligible verbalisation, and object recognition. The results also showed that limiting the CRS-R assessment to the five most frequently observed items (i.e., fixation, visual pursuit, reproducible movement to command, automatic motor response and localisation to noxious stimulation) detected 99% of the patients in MCS. If clinicians have only limited time to assess patients with disorders of consciousness, we suggest to evaluate at least these five items of the CRS-R.

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