Evaluation of sensory stimulation as a treatment for prolonged coma—seven single experimental case studies

Abstract

An earlier paper discussed the results from the four single case studies that evaluated the immediate within-session effects of sensory stimulation for the treatment of patients in prolonged coma (vegetative state). All four patients were found to show behavioural changes, which suggested increased arousal when treated with the version of the procedure known as multimodal stimulation (in which each sense was stimulated in turn in every session). The procedure known as unimodal stimulation (in which just one sense was treated in any session) did not produce any significant behavioural changes in these four patients. This paper presents even further single case experiments, which give a diversity of findings. Three of the patients showed significant behaviour changes, which suggested increased arousal to unimodal stimulation and not to multimodal stimulation, one subject showed apparent decreased arousal in response to unimodal stimulation and no response to multimodal stimulation, one subject showed apparent increased arousal to multimodal stimulation and decreased arousal to unimodal stimulation and two cases showed no significant findings whatsoever. The findings are discussed in relation to the case histories of the patients.