Coma communication hope
Thursday November 10th, 2011
A simple electrical device can be used to detect awareness in patients who seem to be in a permanent vegetative state, researchers reported today.
A study conducted in Britain and Belgium found that some patients could hear instructions and try to respond to them.
The response was measured using portable electroencephalography - EEG - devices, used to measure electrical activity in the brain.
The findings, reported in The Lancet, come from a study of 16 patients at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, UK, and the University Hospital of Liege, Belgium.
Researchers identified responses in three patients. Two of these had suffered traumatic brain injury and the third a non-traumatic brain injury.
Currently only functional MRI studies have established that patients of this kind have awareness - but these cannot be conducted on all patients.
Researchers Professor Adrian Owen and Dr Damian Cruse, of the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, say EEG could be used as a way of communicating with patients.
They say: "It is a considerably cheaper and more portable bedside technique. This method could reach all vegetative patients and fundamentally change their bedside assessment.
"The development of techniques for the real-time classification of these forms of mental imagery will enable routine two-way communication with some of these patients, allowing them to share information about their inner worlds, experiences, and needs."
Tags: Brain & Neurology | UK News | Women’s Health & Gynaecology
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