Ultrasound Reverts Life of Coma Patients

Remarkable progress had been made by a 25-year-old coma patient following an ultrasound treatment to jump-start his brain, as per a research team led by UCLA's Martin Monti in 2016, published in the journal Brain Stimulation.

Stimulating pulses of low-intensity focused ultrasound was delivered using a small device to the thalamus of the 25-year-old coma patient. At the time, the scientists wondered if such results could be repeated, or if their success was just a one-off. They have now done it two more times.

Coma - Causes Symptoms Treatment FAQs
Coma is a deep state of unconsciousness where the affected individual is alive but is not able to react or respond to external stimuli. The outcome ranges from full recovery to death.

‘Remarkable progress had been made by a 25-year-old coma patient following an ultrasound treatment to jump-start his brain. Following this, two more coma patients have demonstrated proven results from ultrasound treatment recently. Further studies are being executed to further analyze a portable commercial version of this device which could be routinely used in hospitals or even in patients' homes.’

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The thalamus is a large mass of gray matter located deep in the brain (in the diencephalon). It acts as the brain's central processing hub, and it is typically weakened in coma patients.

Out of the three patients, two had shown positive progress for the treatment. The treatment involved placing an ultrasound device on the side of the patient's head, followed by activating it 10 times for 30 seconds each within 10 minutes.

Ultrasound treatment in Coma

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Consciousness can be decreased to various degrees and result in conditions like delirium, stupor, coma, persistent vegetative state, minimal conscious state and brain death.

"I consider this new result much more significant because these chronic patients were much less likely to recover spontaneously than the acute patient we treated in 2016 - and any recovery typically occurs slowly over several months and more typically years, not over days and weeks, as we show," says Prof. Martin Monti, who led the study team.

In the first case, was a 56-year-old man who had been in a minimally conscious state after suffering a stroke for almost 14 months. He showed a drastic response to two rounds of ultrasound treatment. He was not only able to drop or grasp a ball when told to do but also raise a bottle to his mouth, use a pen and paper, and communicate verbally.

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A 50-year-old woman was the second case who also revealed a good response to the ultrasound treatment after two and a half years of cardiac arrest that had resulted in coma.

However, the third patient, a 58-year-old man who had been in a coma for five and a half years after being in a car accident showed no effect on treatment.

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"What is remarkable is that both exhibited meaningful responses within just a few days of the intervention," says Monti. "This is what we hoped for, but it is stunning to see it with your own eyes. Seeing two of our three patients who had been in a chronic condition improve very significantly within days of the treatment is an extremely promising result", says, Monti.

Further studies are being executed to further analyze a portable commercial version of the device which could be routinely used in hospitals or even in patients' homes.

Source-Medindia