Category: Brain Injury

By Texas Right to Life A man in England is alive today because his family gave him a chance. The Daily Mirror reports that Sean Chilvers, 30, was hospitalized and on life support after suffering cardiac arrest almost six months ago. Today, Chilvers is making a recovery that doctors never could have predicted. He is talking, making …

By Michael Cook Editor’s note. Today’s repost of an article that appeared a year ago in NRL News Today is a reminder how far we have come in overcoming the conventional wisdom that people who have suffered devastating brain injuries are completely unresponsive. How do we know that patients with acute brain injuries who seem …

By Wesley J. Smith Readers may recall the sad case of Jahi McMath out of Oakland, Calif. In 2013, Jahi experienced a severe bleeding event after throat surgery and a subsequent cardiac arrest. She was successfully resuscitated, but her brain was catastrophically injured from loss of oxygen. Doctors at Oakland Children’s Hospital declared her brain …

By Texas Right to Life Pippa Knight is a brain-injured 5-year-old in the United Kingdom, whose mother has been fighting to keep her alive. Last December, the hospital sought to remove care from Pippa, who has been hospitalized for two years after being diagnosed with acute necrotizing encephalopathy. Her mother, Paula Parfitt, appealed the decision …

Joshua Barras’s wife, with whom he was going through a divorce when he became injured, claims his condition is deteriorating. But a hospice facility found Joshua was no longer eligible for hospice, as he is not declining at all, but is actually in excellent health. LOUISIANA, March 22, 2021 – The wife of a brain-injured …

By Nancy Valko Editor’s note. This reprint, which appeared last year in NRL News Today, is a loud reminder of how much we think we know but don’t about patients with severe trauma injuries. An April 29, 2020 Nature Journal article titled “Olfactory sniffing signals consciousness in unresponsive patients with brain injuries” found that nasal …

By Michael Cook  In 2016, a team led by UCLA’s Martin Monti reported that a 25-year-old man recovering from a coma had made remarkable progress following a treatment to jump-start his brain using ultrasound. Now, Monti and colleagues report in the journal Brain Stimulation that two more patients with severe brain injuries — both had been in what scientists …

By Nancy Valko An April 29, 2020 Nature Journal article titled “Olfactory sniffing signals consciousness in unresponsive patients with brain injuries” found that nasal response to odors (sniffing) by 43 severely brain-injured patients predicted the likelihood of recovery and long-term survival.  According to Noam Sobel, PhD, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, …

By Nancy Valko An April 29, 2020 Nature Journal article titled “Olfactory sniffing signals consciousness in unresponsive patients with brain injuries” found that nasal response to odors (sniffing) by 43 severely brain-injured patients predicted the likelihood of recovery and long-term survival. According to Noam Sobel, PhD, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, …

By Michael Cook How do we know that patients with acute brain injuries who seem completely unresponsive really are? Some retain what doctors call “covert consciousness” – but which ones? A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says that about 15% of such patients are responding to verbal commands in their brains …

By Michael Cook A Chinese man has regained consciousness after five years in a coma during which his wife nursed him every day, all day. Li Zhihua, of Hubei Province, was seriously brain-damaged after being knocked off his scooter in 2013. His wife, 57-year-old Zhang Guihuan, became his sole carer. Doctors initially thought that Li …