A study that defends the delay in lifting life support devices in some coma cases

Doctors and families of patients with serious brain injuries, from coma cases, have a difficult test to solve the option to lift the patient’s life support devices, and this dilemma was a topic of a study conducted by researchers at Harvard University of us at those critical moments. According to a sports model developed by the study, the researchers found that some patients who were withdrawn from life support devices may have survived and regained some ‘independence’, after a few months of injury, and the level of independence indicates the ability to manage personal care, mobility, communication and other basic functions that enable a person to live independently. Life support devices support, or replace the basic body functions that fail, and include: Mechanical ventilation to help breathe or replace, heart rates to restore the heart and breathing, artificial nutrition and moisturizing through nutritional or vein tubes, dialysis to perform kidney functions, and medicine to support vital functions such as heart or blood pressure. Decisions related to the beginning of the treatment that maintains life continues or withdraw a careful study, the diagnosis of the patient, the quality of his life and his personal desires, is often done in consultation with the patient’s family and the healthcare team. Dr. Yalina Bodin, a researcher at the Center for Neurological Technology and nervous restoration at the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University, told Al -Sharq that the results of the study challenge the current approach to make early decisions regarding the withdrawal of life support devices for patients with trauma. Budin notes that some doctors are only waiting for hours at the moment, or a few days before predicting whether or not patients with serious brain injuries will recover. The burdens of life support devices and the withdrawal of the measures that keep life is a common event in intensive care units, but it involves a complicated balance between medical, legal, ethical and religious considerations. A very few healthcare providers are particularly trained to withdraw the measures that maintain life, and there are no extensive guidelines to ensure that doctors provide the highest quality care levels for patients and their families, and the delay in raising life support devices can lead to different costs, medical and moral challenges. Medical, this can lead to long periods in the intensive care unit, and the ongoing use of expensive treatments such as mechanical ventilation and dialysis, which puts pressure on healthcare resources, and is likely to delay the care of other patients. Delay can also lead to an increase in the physical and emotional burden on patients and their families, who affect the quality of life, and are extended in cases where recovery is unlikely. Painful brain injuries and morally, to postpone the upliftment of living devices, raise questions about the suitability of continued treatment if there is some chance, or is not tangible to recover. But the study published in ‘Journal of Neurotrauma’ emphasizes the need to wait longer periods before making decisions related to the separation of life support devices of patients with this type of injury. Each year, more than five million people suffer from severe painful brain injuries, and although there are strong evidence from large -scale studies indicating that the recovery of severe painful brain injuries is “possible”, and the guidelines that recommend that it is not to early bad diagnosis, the decision to start separating life support devices, usually taken within 72 hours after painful brain injuries. Nerve accident and the study states that the information provided by doctors, which indicates nervous accident, is a common cause to choose families to separate life support devices from their families from patients, but there are currently no medical guidelines or accurate algorithms that determine patients with serious real -life brain injuries. Using data collected more than seven and a half years of 1392 patients with severe encephalopathy in intensive care units, researchers in 18 shock therapy centers in the United States have developed a mathematical model to predict the possibility of the withdrawal of life that maintains life based on different factors, including the population composition, social, economic conditions. The study was conducted on patients who did not suffer from cerebral death, that is, the brain injury did not affect the brain stem, and this model enabled them to estimate the possibility of withdrawing support devices that retain life for each patient. The researchers have identified pairs of patients, and they found that each patient who continued to receive support from the devices that sustained his life maintained a similar patient with a similar possibility of the model, but conservative support was withdrawn. By creating these identical couples, the researchers aimed to compare the results, and potential recovery roads for patients who did not withdraw their lives, with those who were withdrawn, and thus the decision to withdraw the decision to withdraw life support devices could lead to better recovery results for some patients. The researchers found that the six -monthly estimated results for a large percentage of the first group that doctors continued to support, either death, or restore independence at least in daily activities, and among the survivors more than 40% of the group regained a certain level of independence. In addition, the research team discovered that, after six months of injury, to occur, an unlikely result was, and the vertical condition is a clinical condition characterized by a lack of awareness and reaction to the environment, despite vigilance. In her statements to ‘Al Sharq’, the great pressure on doctors and Budin says that doctors are undergoing pressure to diagnose families, and to help families make a decision on continued or not treatment. Budin notes that in many cases doctors may have the right to identify patients who are likely to die, even if life support continues. “However, our results indicate that at least some patients who have died due to the downturn of life support devices survived and recovered a lot (according to the sports model for the study), and thus the delay in the decision to continue or withdraw life support devices.” Harvard’s nerve professor sees that postponing decisions associated with life support, patients can give the opportunity to recover, get rid of coma or bring about medical stability, “in some circumstances, patients may be improved, indicating the possibility of constant recovery.” The researchers emphasize the need for more studies that include larger samples, which enable more accurate agreement, in an effort to understand the changing recovery paths of patients with serious brain injuries.