Patients with disorders of consciousness: vital, facial and muscular responses to music or messages

Purposes:

to compare vital signs, facial expression and basal electroneurographic signs with measures during stimuli music, message or “silence” in coma patients, vegetative status or sedated; and relating the score of Glasgow Results Scale with the intervention realized.

Method:

a Monoblind Transversal Controlled Clinical Trial to researcher. The distribution, among the three groups, was randomized (experiment with music, experiment with message or control). Two assessments (sessions) were performed with interval of 40 minutes on the same day.

Results:

most of the 76 patients were male, between 18 to 36 years old and hospitalized due to trauma. Statistically signifi cant changes were found in the variables referred to temperature, facial expression, electroneurography and Glasgow Results Scale; more frequent alterations in second session, in coma and vegetative patients, in frontal muscles and in experiment group.

Conclusions:

the facial expression and the electroneurography seem to be more trustworthy variables than vital signs to evaluate consciousness.