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Results for “Persistent Vegetative State”

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At least 1,279 records · Page 71Linked to original sources
PubMed1995

Outcome of post-traumatic unawareness persisting for more than a month.

From 1986 to the end of 1991, 19 patients with persisting post-traumatic unawareness were admitted for rehabilitation. Criteria for admission were head trauma, Glasgow coma scale score < or = 8 points, and at least a one month duration of unawareness. Out of 19 patients, 12 patients (63%) regained consciousness, 11 patients (58%) within the first year and one patient (5%) within the second year. The mean duration of unawareness in the patients who recovered consciousness was 190 (range 62-440) days. In the recovery group, according to the Glasgow outcome scale, seven out of 12 patients (58%) were moderately disabled and five (42%) were severely disabled at the moment of discharge from rehabilitation. All the 12 patients who regained consciousness live with their families, and none had to be kept in an institution. The data confirm that awakening from post-traumatic unawareness is possible after a long period. Therefore, post-traumatic unawareness persisting for more than a month should not be considered an irreversible condition, because an outcome that might be regarded by some as being acceptable is possible even in patients with very severe brain damage.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Acute basilar artery dissection treated by emergency stenting in a 13-year-old boy.

We report a 13-year-old boy who presented with acute basilar artery occlusion due to traumatic arterial dissection. Because a grave prognosis was expected if left untreated, and the chance of neurological recovery was believed to be unlikely but not zero, given that emergency stenting for the dissection was performed within 6 h of ictus. Recanalization of the basilar artery with stent placement did not change the poor prognosis in this patient because there was extension of dissection into the posterior cerebral arteries.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1997

Outcome of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage in patients on anticoagulant treatment.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Intracranial hemorrhage is an important complication of treatment with anticoagulants. We studied outcome of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) occurring in patients on anticoagulant drugs because this may influence management of patients needing anticoagulant treatment but with increased risk of aneurysmal hemorrhage. METHODS: From the prospective database of patients admitted with SAH to the Utrecht University Hospital, we compared 3-month outcome in patients with or without anticoagulant drugs by means of stratified analyses to adjust relative risks for biological and clinical differences between the two groups. RESULTS: Death or dependency after SAH occurred in 14 of 15 patients on anticoagulant treatment and in 62 of 126 patients not being treated with anticoagulants (relative risk, 1.9; 95% confidence interval, 1.5 to 2.4). The patients on treatment with anticoagulants were more often comatose on admission; the frequencies of rebleeding, secondary ischemia, and hydrocephalus were not higher in patients on anticoagulants. In the stratified analysis the worse outcome in the group on anticoagulant drugs was not essentially influenced by differences in sex, age, cardiovascular history, site of aneurysm, amount of cisternal blood, or extension of hemorrhage into the ventricles. CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of aneurysmal SAH in patients or anticoagulant drugs is extremely poor. The explanation for the worse prognosis in patients on anticoagulants lies in a worse clinical condition from the outset. The poor outcome urges a reconsideration of the balance of risks for anticoagulant treatment in patients with an unoperated intracranial aneurysm or with a family history of SAH and may lead to withholding treatment with anticoagulant drugs or to a preventive operation.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1997

Specific changes in human brain after hypoglycemic injury.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Very few reports are available on serial changes in the human brain after severe hypoglycemic injury. The aim of this study was to investigate sequential neuroradiological changes in brains of patients after hypoglycemic coma compared with those after cardiac arrest previously studied with the same methods. METHODS: We repeatedly studied CT scans and MR images obtained at 1.5 T in four vegetative patients after profound hypoglycemia associated with diabetes mellitus. RESULTS: In all patients, consecutive CT scans showed symmetrical, persistent low-density lesions with transient enhancement in the caudate and lenticular nuclei and transient enhancement in the cerebral cortex 7 to 14 days after onset. Serial MR images consistently revealed symmetrical lesions of persistent hyperintensity and hypointensity on T1- and T2-weighted images, respectively, in the caudate and lenticular nuclei, cerebral cortex, substantia nigra, and/or hippocampus from 8 days to 12 months after onset. CONCLUSIONS: Repeated MR images revealed specific lesions in the bilateral basal ganglia, cerebral cortex, substantia nigra, and hippocampus, which suggests the particular vulnerability of these areas to hypoglycemia in the human brain. We speculate that the localized lesions represent tissue degeneration, including some combination of selective neuronal death, proliferation of astrocytic glial cells, paramagnetic substance deposition, and/or lipid accumulation. The absence of localized hemorrhages on MR images in hypoglycemic encephalopathy is in marked contrast to the presence of regional minor hemorrhages in postischemic-anoxic encephalopathy.

Aged↗
PubMed1999

Words without mind.

A woman (LR), unconscious for 20 years, spontaneously produces infrequent, isolated words unrelated to any environmental context. Fluorodeoxy-glucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging coregistered with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a mean brain metabolism equivalent to deep anesthesia. Nevertheless, PET imaging demonstrated islands of modestly higher metabolism that included Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Functional brain imaging with magnetoencephalographic (MEG) imaging, a technique providing a temporal resolution of better than 1 msec, identified preserved dynamic patterns of spontaneous and evoked brain activity in response to sensory stimulation. Specifically, we examined spontaneous gamma-band activity (near 40 Hz) and its reset or modification during early auditory processing, a measure that correlated with human perception of sensory stimuli (Joliot, Ribary, & Llinás, 1994). Evidence of abnormal and incomplete gamma-band responses appeared in the left hemisphere only in response to auditory or somatosensory stimulation. MEG single-dipole reconstructions localized to the auditory cortex in the left hemisphere and overlapped with metabolically active regions identified by FDG-PET. The observation demonstrates that isolated neuronal groups may express well-defined fragments of activity in a severely damaged, unconscious brain. The motor fixed-action pattern character of her expressed words supports the notion of brain modularity in word generation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗