Stem Cells Revive Woman In Nine Year Coma
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Researchers reported that they were able to awaken an 82-year-old woman who’d been in a persistent nine year vegetative state by using injections of her own immune cells.
The woman, had suffered a stroke, and had been cared for at home by her family with asistance from a home health nurse for nine long years.
Then her doctors proposed an experimental new treatment offering to give the octogenarian intramuscular injections of her own immune cells. These cells specially activated in the laboratory to produce substances thought to modulate brain activity.
Remarkably, after starting the weekly injections the woman began to respond to commands and even regain some movement in previously weakened limbs. She opened her eyes and turned toward people entering the room, held hands with her grandchildren and looked at them, and would voluntarily move her tongue when her teeth were brushed. Although she’d been on a feeding tube for years, her swallowing reflex began to return.
The combination of time, patience and a tireless family results in a patient who wakes up six months after their injury. Other times, though, they don't primarily because no treatments are available to change the outcome for patients in persistent coma. But perhaps this new research will change that.
The doctors in this case manipulated the patient’s own cells to somehow restore some brain function nine years after a devastating stroke, a claim few physicians can make.
Their results also suggest that injections of these sorts of cells might even be effective in patients who have recently suffered brain injury.
This news is especially significant since no therapies have emerged in the last 50 years that systematically reverse coma in patients that have suffered significant strokes or traumatic brain injuries. However, the last decade of neuroscientific research has produced a wealth of data regarding neural responses to injury and potential routes to neuronal rehabilitation and even restoration.
It also reopens the debate regarding the care of patients in coma. For example, is a person really alive if they are unable to me interact or comprehend the outside world? In reality, the vast majority of patients in long-term deep coma or persistent vegetative state do not get better despite treatment. The 82-year-old woman in this study later died after aspirating her food and developing pneumonia.
However, research aimed at protecting or even restoring brain tissue from permanent damage after injury offers a glimmer of hope to patients and their families.
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