Facts About Vegetative and Minimally Conscious States After Severe Brain Injury

I am Health Care Proxy for my friend. He had his aortic & mitral valves replaced. He had 12 hours of surgery, He is mostly in a vegitative state for 16 days. Liver & kidney problems, dialysis, feeding tube, tracheotomy. What are his chances ? Do people come out of those long term specialty hospitals? I am ignorant of this whole thing. He was supposed to be in the hospital 7 to 10 days, and he is still in ICU 16 days later?

Hi everyone, My Aunt had an asthma attack followed which she had an cardiac arrest we reached hospital in 4mins and to revive the hearth it took them 5 to 6mins, doctors tell she has an hypoxic brain injury due to cardiac arrest, we are hoping she will recovery from it but she is still in deep coma she has little bit of senses and eyeball movement she doesn't open eyes. our family is in very tensed state, relatives suggest removal of ventilator support as no progress has been seen in her condition so far and no chances of survival but i strongly feel that she will come out of coma. I would like to know the view of the survivor of hypoxic brain injury or there families to reply or email me so that i would guide my family and relatives not to pull the ventilator support from my Aunt.

Please email : meershahif@gmail.com or reply the comment.

Awaiting for the reply

Regards,
Meer

My healthy vibrant 82 year old mother fell three weeks ago this Saturday. I THINK she may have been dizzy having just stood up from the table but what I DO Know is that she stood up, took a step, paused and fell straight backwards. She slammed her head on the floor - it sounded like a weight hit the hardwood floor. I ran to her side and she was wincing in pain for approx 25 seconds then suddenly she had a massive stroke right before my eyes and died.
Needless to say, I am devastated and I can't help replaying the happening and looking for clues as to why she fell. I can only imagine that hitting her head so hard caused a brain bleed which then caused the stroke.
I would really appreciate an understanding of what may have happened to her.
Mom took a low dose med. for high blood pressure and one of the side effects noted on the bottle is dizziness. She took no other Rx meds, just vitamins. Her GP recently told her she had A-Fib but did not provide her any information, did not prescribe any RX to minimize stroke possibilities, or send her to a cardiologist for care.
What could possibly have caused her to fall?
I know knowing doesn't change that she is gone and I know I should be grateful that at least she isn't lingering in the hospital with brain damage but I feel learning what happened would help me cope with the loss of her. I am not sleeping thinking about the happening constantly. What happened????? I can't make sense of it. Can any of you help?

Thank you for posting this valuable resource. I found myself in a minimally conscious state following a massive cerebellar stroke. I was aware of the comforting presence of my wife and children. I was further comforted by my Mennonite brother and  nephew praying over me... but was not inclined to fully wake from the minimally conscious state. I found this in my search to understand what was going on with my mind. There was one thing that brought me back. For my entire life I have been compelled to arrange things; in my childhood, my Dad brought me hardware to arrange and containers and drawers to put it in. That is how it started... but organizing things relaxes me; it isn't stressful; when it is done I'm happy. In rehab I had received many cards, some signed by whole groups of people, and I asked a visitor to arrange the cards on a shelf in my private room. They did that, but the cards were not arranged right. It was my compulsion to arrange those get well cards correctly that returned me to the present. BTW, I'm stumbling around without assistance following my stroke. I can do everything I did before, but some things are very hard. I'm looking forward to a long life. (I'm 72.)

This article is very helpful. My sister had a sudden cardiac arrest at home last Tuesday. This is Thursday. She is 44 years old. We're not sure how long she was deprived of oxygen, but EMTs arrived  fairly quickly and got her heart started again. She is still in ICU and will be moved hopefully today to a different hospital where they plan to do more tests. I don't know all that they have done, but they are using therapeutic cooling right now. Her temperature is not going down as far as they like, because she also seems to be fighting a fever. After reading this, it looks like she is in the vegetative state. Her eyes are open sometimes and closed others. She doesn't look at anything or track objects. Her heart is beating on it's own, but she is on a ventilator. She fights the ventilator sometimes to try to breathe on her own. I would like to read comments from others who have experienced this with family members. It's very hard not knowing how far she might come out of this, or if she will. 

I have a 37 year old son that went into cardiac arrest two years ago. I don't know how long he was out, paramedics managed to revive him and rushed him to the hospital. He had shut down completely, liver and kidney. He had been 100% dependent on a pacemaker since the age of ten.  Doctors mentioned there is no brain activity, kidney and liver shut down. No sense in doing anything if there is no brain activity.  His aunt prayed over him and he started moving his eyes, squeezed my hand, and he moved his fingers. Told the doctor she said it was reflexes. Then, when he kept doing it on command, they decided to do the pacemaker. He had dialysis for a week, has sclerosis of the liver. Bottom line is keep the faith, I still have my son after two years.

Hello everyone, for past few weeks I have been reading everything about coma, vegetative state, etc. My dad had a major cardiac arrest. His heart stopped for 25 min. They resuscitate him and finally came back. He needed stems at his heart so that has been done. The doctors have put him in a induced coma. After one and a half weeks they tried to stop everything. Cutting the story short... now is 5 weeks. He opened his eyes, moved his hand and legs, smiles but there is no consciousness yet! We have fought to get an EEG and waiting for the MRI. The neurologist will assist and hopefully give us some good news. He has progress every day. Every day is a new move or a cheeky little smile. I just hope he will be conscious soon because this is draining. He is in a vegetative state I believe? He reacts at every noise around so I'm not sure if is not classed as minimal consciousness? God bless everyone with this problems. It hurts so much :(