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TEHRAN, Jun 29 -Researchers say an EEG can reveal hidden consciousness in unresponsive ICU patients days after an injury, offering doctors a better way to predict a patient's outcome.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Researchers say hidden consciousness in unresponsive ICU patients days after a head injury could help doctors predict a patient's outcome.
Close to 1 in 7 patients in the intensive care unit with brain injuries displayed hidden consciousness when their brains were analyzed with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, according to a study published Wednesday in New England Journal of Medicine. Patients whose brains show signs of activity have a higher likelihood of recovery.
In the past, doctors used MRI to detect hidden consciousness, but soon realized it was impractical in a critical care environment.
"Though our study was small, it suggests that EEG -- a tool that's readily available at the patient's bedside in the ICU in almost any hospital across the globe -- had the potential to completely change how we manage patients with acute brain injury," Jan Claassen, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University and study lead author, said in a news release.
EEG is a device used in intensive care to detect seizure risk for patients in critical condition.
The study included data collected with EEG from 104 unresponsive patients. The researchers asked the patients to move their hands and used machine learning techniques to identify signs they were responding to the command. The patients didn't actually move their hands, but researchers say this method may help doctors figure out if a patient will fully recover.
About half of the patients with hidden consciousness could obey verbal commands before being discharged. After a year, roughly 44 percent of patients with observed brain activity could move independently for eight hours a day versus only 14 percent without observed activity.
Patients with brain injuries from bleeding or trauma are more likely to recover than those with oxygen deprivation to experience hidden consciousness activity, the researchers add.
"It's important to begin monitoring with EEG as early as possible and to assess at several time points as recovery after a severe brain injury is a complex process," Claassen said.
source:upi
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