Towards the assessment of quality of life in patients with disorders of consciousness

Purpose To generate foundational knowledge in the creation of a quality-of-life instrument for patients who are clinically diagnosed as being in a vegetative or minimally conscious state but are able to communicate by modulating their brain activity (i.e., behaviourally nonresponsive and covertly aware). The study aimed to identify a short list of key domains that could be used to formulate questions for an instrument that determines their self-reported quality of life.