A man who spent more than six years in a near-vegetative state after a horrific assault has made a dramatic recovery following a pioneering treatment to stimulate his brain with electrical pulses.

The 38-year-old American suffered devastating brain damage during a street robbery in 1999, leaving him almost completely unconscious and in need of round-the-clock care. Doctors who performed emergency surgery on the man told his parents that if he survived the operation, his chances of recovery were zero.
The man, who was confined to a bed in a specialized nursing home, very rarely opened his eyes, occasionally tried to mouth words and move his head, but was otherwise unable to communicate and had to be fed through a tube. Following the new treatment the patient, who cannot be named, is able to recognize and talk to his doctors and family, eat and drink normally and perform basic movements, such as brushing his hair.
It is the first time the technique, called deep brain stimulation, has been used to treat a patient in what neuroscientists refer to as a minimally conscious state.
It is also the first clear sign that it may be possible to rehabilitate people with such severe brain damage that they have previously been considered untreatable by modern medicine. ""He was beaten and kicked around his head, his skull was completely crushed and he was left for dead,"" the man's mother told a press conference by telephone.
""The doctors said if your son pulls out of this in the next 72 hours, and we don't know if he will, he will be a vegetable for the rest of his life. (Source: Guardian