Sharon's condition is said to be stable

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon showed more signs of improvement yesterday, doctors said, moving both hands and continuing to breathe on his own as he was being awakened from a medically induced coma after a stroke last Wednesday.

Dr. Yoram Weiss, an anesthesiologist at Hadassah University Medical Center who is part of the team treating Sharon, said that the prime minister's condition was stable and that his life was in ''no immediate danger."

Sharon, 77, remained unconscious, and doctors cautioned it might take days before they can determine the degree to which his cognitive abilities have been damaged by the hemorrhagic stroke.

Although Sharon remained hooked to a respirator, physicians said he was continuing to breathe independently and moved his left hand for the first time since the stroke, said Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the hospital director.

He said Sharon showed more pronounced movements of his right hand and leg than on Monday, when he first moved them.

''Those are the neurological changes which point to slight progress in the brain function of the prime minister," Mor-Yosef said during an afternoon briefing, the first in nearly 24 hours. He said that during the next day doctors would continue to reduce the sedatives and conduct further tests of the prime minister's brain function.

Movement in the prime minister's left hand might indicate that the stroke caused less harm than feared, because the main damage occurred on the right half of the brain, which controls the left side of the body.

Sharon's physicians said his vital signs -- blood pressure, pulse, intracranial pressure and temperature -- were within normal ranges. Weiss said the prime minister's life was not in immediate danger.

''Metaphorically speaking, we were on the cliff, and now we've gotten five meters away," said Weiss. He repeatedly urged patience, saying it would take time for the anesthetic drugs to leave the prime minister's body and for a full assessment of his abilities to be possible. Hemorrhagic strokes often prove fatal even weeks after they occur.

US surgeons cautioned that they don't have all Sharon's medical information, but emphasized that the prognosis is still grim.

''At a minimum, he is going to have paralysis on one side of his body and a lot of cognitive problems," said Dr. Keith Siller, medical director of the Comprehensive Stroke Care Center at New York University. ''The only potential here that leaves room for optimism is that the nondominant side of the brain was involved (in the cerebral hemorrhage)."

Mor-Yosef denied as ''incorrect" a report in the daily Haaretz newspaper yesterday that said Hadassah doctors previously did not detect a disorder that weakens blood vessels in the brain and could have worsened the odds of Sharon suffering a hemorrhagic stroke.

The newspaper, citing an unidentified source involved in treating the prime minister, said doctors might not have prescribed blood thinners if they had spotted the problem when Sharon was hospitalized last month after suffering a mild stroke.

Doctors at Hadassah sent Sharon home two days after the Dec. 18 stroke, saying it had caused no apparent long-term damage. Since then, Sharon had taken anticoagulants, making it more difficult for doctors to stop the bleeding.