I suspect many people on this site share the confusion expressed by Mark. The image of coma we have of someone being totally unconscious and unaware is not the whole picture. There are many degrees and levels. The closest to the common image is the vegetative state, where as far as you can tell there is no consciousness. Above this there are lots of levels, starting at minimally conscious, through partial conscious to conscious. At all of these stage patients can understand or communicate to a greater or lesser degree. The patient opening their eyes can be a significant step, but this is not always the case. Patients can have eyes open but not consciously be “seeing” anything.
With all the things that have been happening, I forgot tell everyone that Adam is not in a vegetative state. We have believed this for a long time, but it has been confirmed by the therapists. He is now conscious to some degree, but still in a coma, with his eyes closed. He
is starting to communicate. The therapists believe they are getting close to getting a Yes/No signal from him. He is responding to commands such as move your hand, point your finger etc. This is very difficult process because he has been moving his left arm for quite a while and working out what is reflex and what is under conscious control takes a long time, it is easy to be mislead.
He responds to external stimulus, showing discomfort, responds to pain, smell etc and his face is very expressive. You can tell when he is content, happy, not happy and distressed.
He has had very little movement for six months in his right side (arm and leg). This is why getting a command response from his right hand was so significant. There has also been little head and neck movement,
We know he hears and recognises voices. We also know that if more than one person is talking at the same time in his room he gets distressed. Too much input is difficult for him at the moment, but this is a good sign because it shows he is listening and trying to understand. The interesting thing is that the music Adam loves so much (heavy rock) at the moment causes distress and through much experimentation we have found that Mozart helps him to relax (I know, unbelievable isn’t it).
Other sounds distress him. One time I walked into his room and one of the machines was sounding an alarm. This is a particularly annoying sound and Adam was clearly distressed. He was rubbing his ear and forehead which was red raw and scratched (this is partly because he wears a glove when no one is with him so he cant pull at tubes). This is one of the issues we have taken up with LGI.
I hope this helps, sorry it is so long.
He responds to external stimulus, showing discomfort, responds to pain, smell etc and his face is very expressive. You can tell when he is content, happy, not happy and distressed.
He has had very little movement for six months in his right side (arm and leg). This is why getting a command response from his right hand was so significant. There has also been little head and neck movement,
We know he hears and recognises voices. We also know that if more than one person is talking at the same time in his room he gets distressed. Too much input is difficult for him at the moment, but this is a good sign because it shows he is listening and trying to understand. The interesting thing is that the music Adam loves so much (heavy rock) at the moment causes distress and through much experimentation we have found that Mozart helps him to relax (I know, unbelievable isn’t it).
Other sounds distress him. One time I walked into his room and one of the machines was sounding an alarm. This is a particularly annoying sound and Adam was clearly distressed. He was rubbing his ear and forehead which was red raw and scratched (this is partly because he wears a glove when no one is with him so he cant pull at tubes). This is one of the issues we have taken up with LGI.
I hope this helps, sorry it is so long.
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