OBJECTIVE To evaluate serial application of the Wessex Head Injury Matrix (WHIM) in diagnosis of prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC). Specifically, to determine whether the trajectory of change predicts outcome status, and whether the current hierarchical order of WHIM items is correct for this context. DESIGN Analysis of prospectively gathered clinical cohort data. SETTING Consecut...

This review presents an overview of the use of music therapy in neurological early rehabilitation of patients with coma and other disorders of consciousness (DOC) such as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) or minimally conscious state (MCS). There is evidence that patients suffering from UWS show emotional processing of auditory information, such as listening to speech. Thus, it seems reas...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To evaluate in disorders of consciousness (DOC) circadian variations in motor patterns and their possible synchronization with physiologically regulated light variations and/or a social environmental factor, i.e. presence and actions of other persons. METHODS Actimetric and ambient light levels recordings were obtained during 4-9 days in two patients with traumatic brai...

Functional neuroimaging of covert perceptual and cognitive processes can inform the diagnoses and prognoses of patients with disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states (VS;MCS). Here we report an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm for detecting a hierarchy of auditory processes in a group of healthy individuals and patients with disorders of consciousn...

This paper describes a number of studies looking at the assessment and treatment of people with disorders of consciousness (DOCs). These include patients in a coma, patients in a vegetative state (VS), and patients in a minimally conscious state (MCS). It is important to distinguish between these latter 2 states, as referral decisions may well be different for the 2 groups. A new version of a m...

The clinical assessment of non-communicative brain damaged patients is extremely difficult and there is a need for paraclinical diagnostic markers of the level of consciousness. In the last few years, progress within neuroimaging has led to a growing body of studies investigating vegetative state and minimally conscious state patients, which can be classified in two main approaches. Active neur...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW We discuss recent developments in the use of neuroimaging and, in particular, functional MRI, in the assessment of patients diagnosed as vegetative state or minimally conscious state. RECENT FINDINGS In the last year, there has been a substantial increase in the number of research studies published which have used state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods to assess residual cogn...

The clinical assessment of non-communicative brain damaged patients is extremely difficult and there is a need for paraclinical diagnostic markers of the level of consciousness. In the last few years, progress within neuroimaging has led to a growing body of studies investigating vegetative state and minimally conscious state patients, which can be classified in two main approaches. Active neur...

Detecting residual consciousness in unresponsive patients is a major clinical concern and a challenge for theoretical neuroscience. To tackle this issue, we recently designed a paradigm that dissociates two electro-encephalographic (EEG) responses to auditory novelty. Whereas a local change in pitch automatically elicits a mismatch negativity (MMN), a change in global sound sequence leads to a ...