Table 2.

Proposal of a new classification of impairments of consciousness

This classification integrates both behavioural and functional brain-imaging data, reframes MCS as CMS, and goes from unconscious to conscious states. The original labels are referred to patients described in the literature like for instance those patients able to engage in functional communication with EEG or functional MRI (fMRI) whereas they are clinically scored as VS/UWS. The scale orders states (from 1a to 4b) from the most probably unconscious ones, to the most probably conscious ones.