14 DAY TRIAL // A medical case report recently published in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience tells the tale of a man who woke up from a minimally conscious state after being administered a mild depressant drug.
What's interesting is that, as detailed by the doctors who handled this case, the patient, whose identity has not yet been revealed, was not administered the drug in an attempt to help him regain consciousness.
On the contrary, the man was only offered the depressant compound because specialists wanted to submit him to a CT scan and decided to mildly sedate him before this procedure. Simply put, his regaining consciousness was a surprise for both doctors and family.
A rather odd medical case
Writing in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, doctors explain that the patient in question ended up in a minimally conscious state after being involved in a car crash and suffering a severe brain injury.
He remained in this state for about 2 years before specialists saw fit to administer him midazolam instead of propofol, which is more commonly used, in order to mildly sedate him before subjecting him to a CT scan.
Much to their surprise, the depressant drug woke the patient from his minimally conscious state. Thus, the man recovered full consciousness, talked to his parents, his aunt and his brother, and even managed to remember the road to his house.
However, the patient told doctors that he had no memory whatsoever of the car crash that caused him to lose consciousness, and that, during the 2 years that he spent being minimally conscious, he was pretty much oblivious to the state he was in.
The miracle cure did not last long
The bad news is that, although the mild depressant drug successfully woke the patient from the minimally conscious state the car crash had put him in a couple of years back, this miracle cure did not last long, Science Daily informs.
In a nutshell, it is understood that, just 2 hours after regaining full consciousness, the man slipped back into his previous condition. Seeing how they didn't quite know what effect the midazolam had had on the patient the first time, doctors chose not to administer the drug again.
Still, specialists now urge that further investigations into how midazolam and other drugs in the so-called GABA A agonists family can influence people in a minimally conscious state be carried out without delay.
“At least a part of MCS [minimally conscious state] patients could in fact benefit from treatment with non-selective GABA A agonists," said specialist Maria Chiara Carboncini with the University of Pisa in Italy.
“Such patients should be tested not only with GABA A selective drugs like zolpidem, but also with GABA A non-selective drugs like benzodiazepines,” the researcher added.
