It's very sensitive and avoided a lot more misdiagnosis than the Glasgow Coma Scale.

CNN: Trapped 'coma' man: How was he misdiagnosed?

The Glasgow Coma Scale is a standardized test that classifies a patient's motor, verbal and eye response on a graded scale.

CNN: Trapped 'coma' man: How was he misdiagnosed?

They compared the diagnosis of 103 patients according to the consensus opinion of the medical staff looking after them with that determined by the coma recovery scale.

ECONOMIST: Diagnosing comas

The other new tool was the JFK Coma Recovery Scale.

ECONOMIST: Diagnosing comas

Minimally conscious state being a relatively new diagnosis, he says, it may be that some doctors are unfamiliar with its criteria, but that is all the more reason for deferring to the coma recovery scale.

ECONOMIST: Diagnosing comas

The lowest possible score on the scale is 3, but even that is not definitive as it can indicate a deep coma as well as death.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Magazine | How do you diagnose death?