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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Can Brain Dead Patients Come Back To Consciousness?

Doc. 59 yearold man has massive heart attack. ambulance didn't get to him until 25 minutes later. He was brought back with a Defribulator at work. He is partially brain dead. Doc's say back of brain still working. He has been disconnected from ventilator and still holding on 1 week later. What are chances of coming back?
Fri, 14 Nov 2014
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General & Family Physician 's  Response
Hi,i dont think so there is a term called partial brain dead or complete brain dead but am not expert in thise terms when some one tells that a patient is brain dead there are manh crieteria to ne met first the patient should not be able to come out of ventilatory support,there wont be eye opening to painful stimulus,there are certain tests to be performed by a neurologist or the physician handling the patients such as electro-encephalogram EEG before and cold caloric water test of if the outcome of these tests are suggestive of brain dead then the patient is declared as brain dead
As there is 15 min delay in giving the support the chances of hypoxic injury to the might have occoured but as the patient came put of ventilator it is a positive sign
Coming out of ventilator is a positive sign but the response lavels of the patient is also important there is a scale to evalute called a glasgow coma scale the attending physician acesses the outcome by this score,during this period these patients are more susceptible to infections,as age of patient is a bit worriesome chance of embolism is high and elecrolyte imvbalance might occour during the recovery,physiotherapy will be helpful during this phase infact physiotherapy is more helpful
Only attending physcian can help you in explaing what is outcome in this kind pf patients because we need to take many crietrias before telling the prognosis at this stage
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Can Brain Dead Patients Come Back To Consciousness?

Hi,i dont think so there is a term called partial brain dead or complete brain dead but am not expert in thise terms when some one tells that a patient is brain dead there are manh crieteria to ne met first the patient should not be able to come out of ventilatory support,there wont be eye opening to painful stimulus,there are certain tests to be performed by a neurologist or the physician handling the patients such as electro-encephalogram EEG before and cold caloric water test of if the outcome of these tests are suggestive of brain dead then the patient is declared as brain dead As there is 15 min delay in giving the support the chances of hypoxic injury to the might have occoured but as the patient came put of ventilator it is a positive sign Coming out of ventilator is a positive sign but the response lavels of the patient is also important there is a scale to evalute called a glasgow coma scale the attending physician acesses the outcome by this score,during this period these patients are more susceptible to infections,as age of patient is a bit worriesome chance of embolism is high and elecrolyte imvbalance might occour during the recovery,physiotherapy will be helpful during this phase infact physiotherapy is more helpful Only attending physcian can help you in explaing what is outcome in this kind pf patients because we need to take many crietrias before telling the prognosis at this stage