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Communication with patients in the vegetative state possible?
Communication with patients in the vegetative state possible?
In Germany, there are about 10 000 Wachkoma- patients who usually give no externally visible emotional emotion. British and Belgian researchers have found in a recent study that they were able to communicate with a guard coma patient.
Scientists led by Martin Monti of the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit of Cambridge's Medical Research Council and Belgian neuropsychologist Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse of the Coma Science Group in Liège, Belgium, have now published their findings in the prestigious US journal „New England Journal of Medicine“ (NEJM) (10.1056 / NEJMoa0905370).
They studied the brain activity of 59 persons using a functional MRI scanner. The people concerned were asked simple questions that they only asked for „Yes“ or „No“ could answer, for example, if they have siblings. The researchers pretended to the Wachkoma- patients to imagine a motor or a spatial task in an answer. Either they would stand on a tennis court and swing the bat to play the ball to somebody, or they would navigate through a known city or run through their house from room to room. The prompts were presented as „navigation“, „tennis“ and the end as „Relaxation“ named.
There were only 5 of the coma patients who were found to have an arbitrary influence. In three, minimal signs of consciousness were noted and one of the patients was able to begin to communicate. But only with the help of functional MRI. For outsiders, no communication would have been possible or recognizable. The researchers state that the rate of misdiagnosis in the area of coma patients is about 40 percent. Therefore, new diagnostic approaches should be taken in order to possibly involve patients in the choice of treatment in the future as well as to increase the effectiveness of the effort. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 05.02.2010)