Discussion
This case-report demonstrates the challenges and the opportunities that clinicians face when they are called to assess consciousness in patients in whom brain injury results in inconsistent responsiveness and motor behavior. The trajectory we describe here clearly highlights the problem of discriminating between unconsciousness and unresponsiveness and shows how a comprehensive hierarchical assessment, combining clinical and advanced paraclinical markers, can help minimizing diagnostic error. At the same time, the comprehensive multimodal exploration performed here prompts an interesting pathophysiological reflection on the relationships between DoC, AM and extreme parkinsonism.