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It is now possible for the vegetative state patients after brain damage to survive for a long period, due to the progress of modern medical science. Their long survival, however, causes various social problems. For instance, they are increasingly occupying the beds for emergency cases and many of their families have been led to financial and household difficulties. We intended to make those problems clear by collecting statistics of these patients in the main neurosurgical clinics in Japan. Results of our three years' follow-up of these patients, including economical aids in some prefectures and medical ethics surrounding these cases are reported in this paper.
Kodama et al. (Thu,) studied this question.