OBJECTIVE Our goal was to establish the role of VOR - vestibular ocular reflex - in predicting cerebral death in comatose patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Prognosis study based on three concurrent cohorts of comatose patients of known etiology followed until the ultimate outcomes: recovery, vegetative state or death. Sixty comatose patients (Glasgow scale 8 or less) with known causes were studi...

Trauma to oral soft tissues in comatose patients may be more widespread than reported, as no extensive study of this problem has been conducted. Various appliances for the prevention of self-inflicted injuries to oral tissues particularly in children and the physically and mentally challenged have been documented, but there is little information on their use in adult comatose patients. Because ...

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE The composition of oral microbiota in comatose patients remains uncertain. Some pulmonary pathogens may be found in dental biofilms or as part of the saliva microbiota. It is supposed that some pneumopathogenic microorganisms may overgrow in the mouths of comatose patients and spread to their lungs. METHODS The oral colonization dynamics of staphylococci, Enterobacteriaceae...

Abstract Early prognostication of long-term outcome comatose patients after cardiac arrest remains challenging. Electroencephalography-based power spectra have been shown to help with the identification favorable during first day coma. Here, we aim at comparing prognostic value and second coma onset following arrest, investigate impact sedation on prognostication. In this cohort observational s...

The present study aimed at determining whether the N400 effect (an ERP index of semantic processing) for spoken words occurs in comatose patients. The patients, treated in an intensive care unit, scored less than 8 points in the glasgow coma score at the time of the recording. Semantically related and unrelated spoken word pairs were delivered to patients through headphones at a rate of 1/3s. P...

BACKGROUND Comatose patients with acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) diagnosed as inoperative due to their severe comorbidity will be treated differently between countries. In certain countries including Japan, aggressive medical care may be performed according to the patients' family requests although the effects on the outcome are obscure. For respiratory distress in comatose patients with ...

Sixty-five patients who remained in coma for more than 24 hours after resuscitation from cardiac arrest were divided into two groups according to their EEGs. Thirteen patients were found to have rhythm of alpha frequency while 52 had the usual EEG findings after cerebral anoxia. Three patients from the group with alpha frequency EEG rhythms regained full consciousness but showed severe sequelae...