The prognosis of the outcome of comatose states

Causes of coma and their evolution in the medical intensive care unit

“…Moreover, our study was subject to regular updates of the guidelines for cardiac arrest resuscitation which has improved immediate survival over the last 30 years. This hypothesis is corroborated by the findings of the other previous reports [4][5][6][7][8]. The reason for the Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00415-011-6388-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”

“…However, since then no specific study focusing on the causes of coma and their evolution over time has been published although the ICU management of brain injuries has progressed tremendously. Some data are available from prospective and retrospective studies assessing coma outcome [3][4][5][6][7][8], but the different causes of coma were excluded in these studies. These studies, therefore, do not provide a global description of the causes of coma and their evolution.…”

“…The study population was comparable in age, sex ratio, and the Glasgow Coma Scale score to previously reported populations of comatose patients as in the Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments (SUPPORT) cohort. SUPPORT, the largest previously available cohort of 596 non-traumatic comatose patients, studied factors such as high risk of death and severe disability [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. However, the SUPPORT cohort excluded drug intoxication and metabolic causes of coma [4].…”

Effect of Age on Ocular Microtremor Activity

“…In latter years it has been recognized that recording OMT may be of value in clinical situations, particularly as a method of assessing brain-stem function (11). Studies have shown that OMT activity is reduced in comatose patients and could have prognostic value (14,15). More recently, our group has shown that OMT activity is absent in subjects who are clinically diagnosed as being brain-stem dead (24).…”

“…The period between the bursts is termed the baseline. The clinical interest in OMT has centered on its use in the assessment of the comatose patient, with broad agreement among authors of its prognostic value (14,15).…”