Therapies to Restore Consciousness in Patients with Severe Brain Injuries: A Gap Analysis and Future Directions.

ABSTRACT:

Background/objective

For patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) and their families, the search for new therapies has been a source of hope and frustration. Almost all clinical trials in patients with DoC have been limited by small sample sizes, lack of placebo groups, and use of heterogeneous outcome measures. As a result, few therapies have strong evidence to support their use; amantadine is the only therapy recommended by current clinical guidelines, specifically for patients with DoC caused by severe traumatic brain injury. To foster and advance development of consciousness-promoting therapies for patients with DoC, the Curing Coma Campaign convened a Coma Science Work Group to perform a gap analysis.

Methods

We consider five classes of therapies: (1) pharmacologi

SUBMITTER: Edlow BL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8266715 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature