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International Study Detects Consciousness in Unresponsive Patients
Study co-led by Mass General Brigham found that one in four patients with severe brain injury who appeared unresponsive responded to instructions covertly.
According to the authors of the study, published August 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, patients who demonstrate this phenomenon, called cognitive motor dissociation, understand language, remember instructions and can sustain attention, even though they appear unresponsive. Since the first study demonstrating cognitive motor dissociation in individuals with disorders of consciousness was published nearly two decades ago, centers around the world have found that this condition occurs in approximately 15 to 20 percent of unresponsive patients. I think we now have an ethical obligation to engage with these patients, to try to help them connect to the world,” said senior study author Nicholas Schiff, MD, the Jerold B. Katz Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine and administrative lead of the consortium.
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