- The unnamed patient was only being kept alive through medical intervention
- Doctors thought the patient’s only option was to be admitted to a nursing home
- She was able to move and speak in short sentences due to the drug amantadine
- The patient can now breathe independently, eat precut food and stand with help
- Experts believe the drug may have pushed her ‘above the threshold’ for recovery
A vegetative stroke patient who was completely unresponsive to what was going on around her, regained complete consciousness just 16 days after being given a Parkinson’s disease drug, a case report reveals.
The unnamed woman, 36, who was only being kept alive by medical intervention, was able to speak in short sentences after being given the dopamine-boosting drug, known as amantadine.
Unable to move, doctors thought her only option was to be admitted to a nursing home, yet the woman, believed to be from Berlin, can now eat and stand.
Experts believe the drug may have pushed the woman, who was diagnosed with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, ‘above the threshold’ for recovery.
Amantadine is used to treat Parkinson’s disease and ‘flu. It is thought to increase levels of the ‘feel-good’ hormone dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is involved in regulating movement.
Brain scans reveal the woman suffered a stroke, which left her in a vegetative state
Woke fully orientated in 16 days
After nine months of progressive deterioration and unsuccessful treatment, doctors decided to try giving the patient amantadine, according to BMJ Case Reports.
Amantadine has previously been shown to ease uncontrollable muscle movements, which the patient was suffering from.
Within 16 days, she woke fully orientated and went from scoring five points on the coma recovery scale to 23.
She was was even able to talk six-word sentences via a speaking valve.
To continue her rehabilitation, the patient was transferred to a specialist centre three months after first receiving amantidine.
While there, she became able to breathe independently, eat precut food and stand without help.
Yet, she still has no memory of the time around her stroke.
Scans show she progressively deteroriated as she became unaware of her surroundings
Thought only option was a nursing home
After suffering a stroke, doctors placed a shunt in the patient’s brain to relieve pressure caused by accumulating fluid.
After which, she experienced weakness on her left side but was still able to communicate and drink from a feeding cup.
Yet, for unknown reasons, her condition deteriorated over several weeks.
She became unresponsive and was vomiting, severely sweating and forced to breathe through a tube.
The patient was later diagnosed with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome – when someone is awake but completely unresponsive.
She had to stay in intensive care as she suffered infected bed sores, a collapsed lung, anaemia, sepsis, pneumonia and a urinary tract infection.
Due to her suffering with severe involuntary muscle jerks, doctors gave her a course of three anti-epileptic drugs, however, these were ineffective.
Doctors felt the patient had few options left beyond being admitted to a nursing home.
Yet, at her family’s request, she was transferred to Charité hospital in Berlin nine months after her initial stroke.
Drug ‘pushed patient above threshold’ for recovery
Professor Hedley Emsley, a neurologist at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, told MailOnline: ‘There is no real evidence that the observed improvement is not merely coincidental.’
A different expert argued the woman’s brain scans reveal a large area that appeared undamaged by her stroke, which may have been sufficient to aid her recovery.
Professor Karl Herholz, a neurologist at Salford Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, told MailOnline: ‘Several research groups have found that the clinical syndrome of vegetative state is actually quite heterogeneous biologically, and sometimes clinically unexpected recovery can well be explained by a relatively good preservation of some remaining cortical function.
‘I would see this as one of these cases where a small change, in this case by usage of an activating drug, the patient has just been pushed above the threshold to regain some consciousness.’