A woman who woke up after 20 years in a catatonic state could hold key to ... trends now
A woman trapped in her own mind for two decades has woken up and is able to be with her family again thanks to a revolutionary new treatment.
April Burrell was just a 21 in 1995 when she suffered a traumatic event while studying accountancy at university in Maryland, US, that left her suffering from constant visual and auditory hallucinations.
She was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, a devastating mental illness that dramatically alters sufferers' sense of reality.
April spent the next 20 years trapped in a cationic state, unable to recognise her family and having her every need cared for in a psychiatric hospital in New York.
Until one day, she woke up thanks to a team of medics who treated her for lupus — a disorder that they discovered was causing her immune system to attack her brain.
Her doctors hope the discovery could help treat hundreds of patients in a similar situation.
A woman in the US awoke from a catatonic state after medics discovered her condition was actually being caused by a treatable condition where her immune system was mistakenly attacking her brain in a discovery that could give hope to other patients (stock image)
Professor Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, was one of the team of medics who treated April.
In a bizarre coincidence, he told the Washington Post how he had met April back when he was just a medical student, and the memory of her stayed with him.
'She would just stare and just stand there,' he said. 'She wouldn't shower, she wouldn't go outside, she wouldn't smile, she wouldn't laugh. And the nursing staff had to physically manoeuvre her.'
Almost two decades later Professor Markx would meet April again after one of his students went to the same psychiatric hospital and spoke about meeting the same woman.
Shocked there had been no improvement in 20 years, Professor Markx spoke to her family and gathered a team of experts to run a full analysis on her condition.
Professor Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, was one of the team of medics who treated the woman, and said there could be other 'forgotten' patients who could be similarly helped
They found sings of lupus in her blood work.
Around 50,000 Brits and 1.5million people in the US are thought to suffer from the long-term autoimmune condition. More women than men suffer from the condition.
The cause is not fully understood, but a viral infection, some medications, sunlight, puberty and menopause are all thought to be possible causes.
It is unknown if April's earlier traumatic experience had triggered lupus, or if the development of the disease was a coincidence.
Brain scans showed evidence that April's immune system was attacking her temporal lobes, which are vital for processing information and emotions as well as language.
April's
