Posts Tagged ‘coma’
“I Am Not In Pain’ Coma Patient!
A patient who is in a vegetative state conveyed that he is not in pain.!
The Doctors seem to have interpreted the brain waves to arrive at this conclusion.
If this is correct, then the concept of Euthanasia in the case of Coma Patients need to have a re-look into, as these cases are recommended on the assumption that the Coma patients are in pain.
A patient is prepared for an MRI in a file photo. The medical advancement is being touted as the first of its kind in the world. It happened last June when doctors in London, Ont., used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) to analyze brain activity patterns in Scott Routley.
Photograph by: Miguel Alvarez , AFP/Getty Images
Story:
For more than a decade, Scott Routley has been living in a vegetative state.
He can’t talk. He can’t move. And although his eyes are open, no one is sure whether he can see.
But now, for the first time, doctors caring for the 39-year-old London, Ont., man say they know he’s not in pain.
And they learned it from Routley himself, by analyzing his brain waves when they asked him.
“This was a landmark moment for us because for the first time, a patient can actually tell us information, important information about how they’re feeling and their current situation,” said lead researcher Dr. Adrian Owen on Tuesday.
The medical breakthrough, believed to be the only time a severely brain injured patient has been able to relay clinically relevant information to their doctors, is being touted as a new way to possibly improve their quality of care.
Owen, who is the head of the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario, says research published online last year in The Lancet shows that one in five of these patients are conscious, but essentially trapped in their bodies because they’re unable to communicate verbally or physically.
His team has been working for the past year trying to determine whether Routley, who became vegetative following a car crash 12 years ago, had any “residual brain activity” and how much he was able to understand them.
Last June, the doctors employed a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) to see if they would be able to analyze his brain patterns.
La conscience, coma de mesure. Un fantaisie?
La conscience est du chose dе laquelle nous savons chose précieuse.
Il est quelque chose que nous savons existe, yetnous ne savons pas comment et où.
La compréhension devient même plus difficile quand nous sommes affrontées avec un coma.
Dans un médicament, un coma (dе le coma de grecque κ μα, signifier un somme profond) est un état d’inconscience dure plus de six heures, [1] dans laquelle une personne: peut pas être éveillée; échoue répondre communément motivations terribles légères, ou sembler; manquer d’un somme normale - Réveille cycle; et ‘ aborde pas un bénévole Actions. [1] Un individu est signalé as été comateux dans un état d’un coma. (Вики)
Conscience est le calibre ou nation de être aware d’un objet externe ou quelque chose dans oneself. [1] [2] Il a été défini comme subjectivité, conscience, la capacité de subir ousentir, le vigilance, avoir un sens de selfhood et l’exécutif contrôlent un organisation du esprit. [3] Malgré la difficulté dans définition, beaucoup de philosophes pensent qu’il y a un bosse largement commune rudimentaire, dе que conscience est. [4] Comme Max Velmanset Susan Schneider ont écrit dans le Blackwe accompagnera à conscience: quelque chose dе laquelle nous sommes aware organise un partie de notre conscience à un moment déterminé, suscitant subir immédiatement aspect plus familier et plus mystique de nos viesconscient. [5]
Un deuxième peut être représenté, it est simplement une description.
Ainsi le coma est la disparition aperçue de Consiuosness pendant que nous ne savons pas quelle conscience est!
Encore plus intrigant la confusion est-il s’est-il magnetic ou électrique.
Ainsi nous sommes face le dilemme dans diagnostiquer s’une est dans un coma et dans un pays végétal.
La question devient importante en cas nous départageons euthanasie.
Scientifiques avoir trouvé un mode avoir décidé s’une est-il dans un coma maintenant.
Scientifiques peuvent discerner gens dans pays végétalaux et minimally conscients enmesurant inspirations maintenant, une équipe de recherche belge avait annoncé à lasociété conférence de Neuroscience semaine last qui pourrait conduire à un plus net, mode d’objective suscite la diagnostic.
The Électroencéphalogrammes enquêteurs-employés sont, adouts de la génie est activité électrique, analyse comment les esprits des gens sains et cerveau-endommagent ont répondu un secousse doux électrique. Ils ont quantifié comment complexe et répandue l’activité de génie des patients différents a été alors, employants cette quantité de complexité comme, essentiellement, une quantité de conscience. À 32 patients awake, sains larges, le secousse a évoqué un beaucoup de difficultés répandu d’activité de génie;, deux patients avec syndrome engrené où patients sont pleinement conscients mais incapables pour aller ou répondre ont affiché une réponse également complexe. Le secousse a fait de moins réponse de cerveau complexe dans douze minimally conscients patients. Six patients végétalaux ont affiché même activation de génie complexe plus petite encore, dans équivalence avec que les chercheurs ont vu dans sujets d’a dormi et dans ce sous anesthésie.
Moindres réaction et complexité, davantage de être le conclusion qu’il est le coma.
D’où un point est clair, conscience est quelque chose qui suscite un plus compétent.
Ce aiderait dans en pas façonné un coma, en morceau dе un avoir chassé le fantaisie que consciences n’est pas une invention d’imagination.
Conscience est-il un fantaisie?
Ainsi je vais parler dе un peine que j’ai et c’est je philosophe.
Quand je vais à un partie et people me questionner que fais-je et je dis, je suis un professeur, leurs œils vitrent. Quand je vais à un cocktail party académique et il y a tous le prof est autour, ils me questionnent dans quel domaine je suis et je dis, philosophie – leurs œils vitrent.
Quand je vais un philosophe est un parti
Et ils me questionnent que je work et je dis, conscience que leurs œils candissent – leurs lèvres se pelotonner dans un gronder.
Http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html
Measuring Consciousness,Coma.Illusion?
Consciousness is some thing of which we know precious little.
It is something which we know exists ,yet we do not know how and where.
The understanding becomes even more difficult when we are confronted with Coma.
In medicine, a coma (from the Greek κῶμα koma, meaning deep sleep) is a state of unconsciousness lasting more than six hours,[1] in which a person: cannot be awakened; fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound; lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle; and, does not initiate voluntary actions.[1] A person in a state of coma is described as being comatose.(wiki)
Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: subjectivity,awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.[3] Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.[4] As Max Velmansand Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: “Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.”[5]
As may be seen it is only a description.
So Coma is the ‘perceived’ disappearance of Consiuosness while we know not what Consciousness is!
Still more intriguing is the confusion whether it is Magnetic or Electrical.
So we are faced with the dilemma in diagnosing whether one is in Coma and in a vegetative State.
The issue becomes important in case we decide on Euthanasia.
Scientists have now found a way of determining whether one is in Coma.
‘Scientists can now distinguish between people in vegetative and minimally conscious states by measuring brain waves, a Belgian research team announced at the Society for Neuroscienceconference last week, which could lead to a more clear-cut, objective way to make the diagnosis.
Recording Consciousness..
The researchers used EEGs, readouts of the brain’s electrical activity, to study how the brains of healthy and brain-damaged people responded to a mild electrical jolt. They then quantified how complex and widespread the brain activity of different patients was, using this complexity measure as, essentially, a gauge of consciousness. In 32 wide-awake, healthy patients, the jolt elicited a widespread flurry of brain activity; two patients with locked-in syndrome, where patients are fully conscious but unable to move or respond, showed a similarly complex response. The jolt produced less complex brain responses in twelve minimally conscious patients. Six vegetative patients showed even less complex brain activation still, on par with what the researchers saw in sleeping subjects and in those under anesthesia.’
Lesser the reaction and complexity, more is the conclusion that it is Coma.
Therefore one point is clear, Consciousness is something that makes one more aware.
This would help in determining Coma,apart from dispelling the notion that Consciousnesses is not a figment of imagination.
Is Consciousness an Illusion?
‘
So I’m going to speak about a problem that I have and that’s that I’m a philosopher.
When I go to a party and people ask me what do I do and I say, “I’m a professor,” their eyes glaze over. When I go to an academic cocktail party and there are all the professors around, they ask me what field I’m in and I say, “philosophy” — their eyes glaze over.
When I go to a philosopher’s party
and they ask me what I work on and I say, “consciousness,” their eyes don’t glaze over — their lips curl into a snarl.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html
Call of Fiancée Awakens From Coma
How deep affection and Love is demonstrated when a patient in Coma was awakened after ten months!
Love Awakens .
“For ten months, he had been lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and unresponsive.
The injuries Mathew Taylor had suffered in a motorbike crash were so severe that his devastated family were warned he may never wake up.
But then came the phone call that would change everything. From her home in Bali 7,000 miles away, Mr Taylor’s fiancee Handayani Nurul chatted to him – and at the sound of her voice, tears began trickling down his cheek.
It was the first time the 31-year-old had shown any sign of recovery since fracturing his skull in the horrific accident on the Indonesian island.
Now, every time the phone rings, Mr Taylor reaches out his hand.
Describing the moment Mr Taylor first responded to his fiancee’s voice, his stepfather Simon Moore said: ‘He had tears in his eyes as we held the phone to his ear. She asked him something and he said a silent yes.
Then tears were coming down his face. It was brilliant.’
Now, Mr Taylor’s mother Heather calls Miss Nurul, known as Anda, and passes the phone towards her son.
Mr Moore said: ‘As soon as he hears her voice he lifts his hand for the phone. He listens to her and you can see this change in him.’
Mr Taylor, from Overseal, Derbyshire, met Miss Nurul, 27, after he moved to Indonesia in 2009 to teach English.
The couple planned to get married, but Mr Taylor was knocked down while riding a motorcycle in Bali on July 9 last year.
As well as a fractured skull, he had to have his eye socket reconstructed, using bone taken from his thigh.
Following surgery, he slipped into a coma and has remained in a vegetative state ever since.
Mr Taylor had no medical insurance, so his family were forced to raise £100,000 for him to be treated in Bali. His father, Darrell Taylor, contributed £50,000 of his savings, while Mr Moore remortgaged his home to find the remaining £50,000.
Misdiagnosed With Coma, Belgian Man Communicates After 23 Years
Very sad.Some doctors, despite fancy degrees,make a cursory examination and arrive at a prognosis.
In this case brain activity should have been mapped or at least pupil dilation examination should have been more thorough.
It is very hard to digest that that this should happen because of inefficiency of the doctors.
Many of us regard doctors next to God, forgetting that medicine is an evolving science ; most of the treatments are exploratory in Nature and these procedures have contra indications as well;some of the medications are effective with out anybody knowing why and how it cures.Classic example is grand mal seizure .We know that this seizure is triggered by sudden increase in electrical discharges in the brain and Eption is prescribed to treat this.But none knows how it works or whether it has side effects.
Because of commercialization of medicine , neither the doctor nor the patient has the time to discuss family history of the patient;nor are the patients interested in slow and steady cure or allowing body to take care with minimal supportive treatment.
It is imperative for patients to inform and discuss with the doctor,your family history,your known allergies and your symptoms.
It is also mandatory on the part of the patients to check the medicines prescribed for contra indications.If yes, inform the doctor and have the medicine changed.Even then you should also chek up on internet about the medicine’s efficacy.This may sound tedious, but will save not only money, but your life as well.
When going for surgery check before hand the anesthesia that is about to me administered and see if it it is compatible with your system for some anesthetics are incompatible.
If you had any disease prior to surgery that has resulted in Edema(especially pulmonary), Nitrous oxide is to be shunned.
While getting tests being carried out make sure at the lab, it is done for the part for which you have problem i.e.what the doctor has prescribed and see that the report is yours when you collect it.Never depute somebody else to collect it.
Also popping pills based on advertisement or based on what your doctor has prescribed earlier ailments is dangerous.
All these jobs are to be carried out by Doctors.Unfortunately,Doctors have no time for patients for they are too busy.
Story:
Conscious but unable to communicate for 23 years after a car accident that was thought to have put him into a deep coma, a quadriplegic Belgian man has described how medical science finally put an end to his agonizing years of silence.
Now able to make himself understood via a computer and specially built keyboard, the man, Rom Houben, said in the Monday issue of the German magazine Der Spiegel that when doctors made the correct diagnosis, it was like starting a second life.
“I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me — it was my second birth,” Mr. Houben, now 46, was quoted as saying.
Mr. Houben, who was an engineering student at the time of the accident, lives in a care home near Brussels. He was assumed to be in a persistent vegetative state until three years ago, when the breakthrough was made.
In the interview he recalled the aftermath of the car accident that paralyzed him and the realization that no one understood that he was fully conscious.
“I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” he said. He added that he then became a witness to his own suffering as doctors and nurses tried to speak with him until they gave up all hope.
Using brain scanning techniques, Dr. Steven Laureys, a neurological researcher at the Liège University Hospital, discovered that Mr. Houben’s cerebral cortex was still active.
On Monday, Dr. Laureys, who recently published a paper on comas, said that as many as 4 out of 10 similar patients may have been misdiagnosed.
He also described the moment he realized, for the first time that Mr. Houben was fully conscious. “It was one of those rare moments where you really see that what you are doing is useful,” he said in a telephone interview.
“It was a very big moment not just for me but for the whole team, one of those few much-needed moments” for medical professionals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/europe/24iht-coma.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a4
