Hospitals

Hearing voices and personal stories does actually help coma patients

It’s pretty terrifying to imagine being in a coma and being even slightly aware of […]

It’s pretty terrifying to imagine being in a coma and being even slightly aware of your surroundings, unable to speak – let alone the horrific process loved ones go through seeing another person unable to respond. But there are real benefits to maintaining interaction.

Scientists at Northwestern University played recordings made by family members four times a day for six weeks to six coma patients (part of a total group of 12 men and three women included in the study who had all been victims of road accidents, bomb traumas or assaults). The ones who heard the recordings recovered faster than normal, according to the research published in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.

“We believe hearing those stories in parents’ and siblings’ voices exercises the circuits in the brain responsible for long-term memories,” said clinical neuroscientist Dr Theresa Pape. “That stimulation helped trigger the first glimmer of awareness.”

The Telegraph explained the study:

Families brought in an armful of photo albums to come up with topics for the stories. Then parents and siblings recorded at least eight stories, which they practiced reciting naturally and using the patient’s nickname. The scientists encouraged family members to think of a special memory such as a wedding, a road trip of a family in-joke.

“It had to be something they’d remember, and we needed to bring the stories to life with sensations, temperature and movement,” said Dr Pape.

This is seriously touching – when patients heard the voice of a family member saying their name or telling stories, their brain actually showed increased neural activity in regions involved with understanding language and long-term memory on an MRI.

“We saw changes in the blood oxygen level in their brain regions associated with retrieving long-term memory and understanding language,” Pape said. “That means they were using those regions of their brains.”

Hopefully most people never have to be in this situation, but knowing that we can make an impact for those in a coma is really valuable, both for those in seemingly unaware and their loved ones.

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