Coma takes the lives of many people every year. Doctors of many countries are working on how to correctly and effectively remove a patient from a coma.
Recently it became known that Russian scientists have taken a significant step towards correctly removing patients from a coma. Neurologists managed to develop a method that helps restore the patient's consciousness in very severe clinical cases. Physicians from the Scientific Center of Neuralgia of Russia, by non-invasively stimulating the patient's brain with electromagnetic pulses, were able to restore the consciousness of several post-comatose patients. Academician Mikhail Piradov, director of the center, said that the study of the work of the brain of a person who is in and out of a coma is very relevant. The developed method is effective even for those patients who are on the verge of a vegetative state.
Every year the number of patients in a state of minimal and vegetative consciousness becomes more and more. The development of pharmacology and medicine as a whole makes it possible to prolong and save the lives of even almost hopeless patients, however, its quality decreases. Such patients require enormous material costs and special care. To avoid bedsores, it is necessary to turn the patient over every few hours, treating the places with special ointments. To prevent infection with infectious diseases, high-quality, expensive antibiotics are needed. Low molecular weight heparins help prevent thrombosis. Taking care of seriously ill patients is exhausting not only financially, but also physically.
Mikhail Piradov said that research at the Scientific Center of Neuralgia has been conducted since 2015 in cooperation with the University of Milan and Harvard Medical School. The completion of the project is scheduled for 2019. Thanks to research in this area, significant results have been achieved. The doctors were faced with the task of thoroughly studying which areas of the brain are the first to "turn on" when a person leaves a coma. In a number of studies using a tomograph, various stages of patient conditions were studied. Almost 6,000,000 rubles are allocated annually to combat coma.
Every year in various countries, people falling into a coma are becoming more and more. As foreign statistics show, the number of cases varies from 0.2 to 6.1 per 100,000 people. Coma is a state of prolonged absence of consciousness. It is characterized by a sharp weakening or lack of reaction to external stimuli, the extinction of reflexes until they completely disappear, a violation of the depth and frequency of respiration, a change in vascular tone, an increase or slowdown of the pulse, and a violation of the temperature regulation of the body. A person falls into a similar state when the blood circulation in the brain is disturbed. The causes of a coma can range from head injuries to epileptic seizures.
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Coma can develop suddenly or gradually. Medicine knows 4 degrees of coma. The first degree is characterized by sleep or stupor, reactions to external stimuli and pain are greatly dulled. The second degree of coma brings with it deep sleep and occasional chaotic movements, a weakened reaction of the pupils to a light stimulus. In the third stage, there is a lack of consciousness. The fourth degree is called by doctors a "transcendent" state.
There are several options for getting out of a coma. In the first case, consciousness fully returns to the person, and the body retains all the necessary motor functions. It is possible for a person to return to consciousness with vegetative signs. In the worst case, the person does not come out of the coma and dies.
However, science knows several unusual returns of a person from a coma. Laila Tovsi fell into a coma at the age of 3. The cause of the incident was the meningitis suffered by the girl. Doctors prepared the parents for the worst, but the little girl came to herself, singing the song of the group "Abba". But another 3-year-old girl, after coming out of a coma, began to behave in a very adult way. The baby began to smoke, drink alcohol and swear, which was absolutely not typical for her before. The awakened girl began to demand boys' clothes. The parents even had to change their place of residence in order to try to return their daughter to the normal behavior of a 3-year-old child.
Joy Hopkins, 22, returned from a coma and sent his mom three obscene letters. The young man was unconscious for 40 days. The cause of the painful condition was the injury he received in a car accident.
Doctors deliberately put pregnant Valerie Lia into a coma so that she could give birth to a healthy baby. Before giving birth, a 35-year-old girl fell ill with swine flu and the doctors chose a drug-induced coma to save the life of the woman in labor and her baby. Valerie had a cesarean section, and a few days later she regained consciousness to find Oliver's son nearby.
Over the long period of observation of unconscious patients, doctors came to the conclusion that people hear and understand everything. With a rapid heartbeat in a coma, patients react to the presence of relatives and friends. For example, one motorcyclist who was involved in an accident fell into a coma and reacted to the presence of his girlfriend with an increased heart rate. Another patient, while under anesthesia during surgery, heard doctors joking about his large belly. When the man came to his senses, he expressed his indignation about this.
Modern science is developing at a tremendous pace. Painstaking work to study the functions of the human brain in the future will save the lives of more than one person.
Irina Dneprova
