Friday, December 2, 2011

Unresponsive Patients Might Actually Be More Responsive Than Previously Believed


Here's a fascinating piece that bodes well for people in nonresponsive states - many more than previously thought are minimally conscious and can communicate with the outside world.
A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead
The moment she saw him, Judy Cox knew her son was dead. It was an October morning in 2008, and she had just stepped out the door to run an errand when she found him lying faceup in the driveway, ghost white, covered in purple splotches. He wasn’t breathing, and when she couldn’t revive him, she ran screaming into the house where her husband, Wayne, was still asleep. “Chris is dead,” she cried. “Call 911!”
Wayne jumped out of bed and raced down to the driveway, where he knelt over his son’s limp frame and tried frantically to elicit a breath or a heartbeat. As he pumped Chris’s chest and scooped out the vomit that had collected in his mouth, Judy ran to the kitchen and steadied herself long enough to call for an ambulance. . . .
Chris was in a coma, the doctor said, and in all likelihood had suffered severe, irreversible brain damage. He was breathing only with the help of a ventilator and would probably have a series of heart attacks in the night. more

No comments:

 
Locations of visitors to this page