CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Neurocritical Care Society (NCS) and the Curing Coma® Campaign today announced the second annual World Coma Day, a 24-hour online global event, will commence on March 22, 2022. The event will clarify and dispel myths about coma, feature remarkable stories of coma recovery, provide updates and insights on coma science by medical experts, deliver educational sessions for patients and families, and include "shout out" videos from providers, patients, and families around the world.
“Around the world, even among medical professionals, coma is a mysterious condition that is fraught with diagnostic and therapeutic challenges not seen with other conditions,” said Claude Hemphill, MD, MAS, Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco and Co-Chair of NCS’ Curing Coma Campaign. “NCS created World Coma Day as a way for medical providers, patients, caregivers, advocates and allied organizations to stand together and proclaim that we will not back down in our fight for curing coma. Through research and growing awareness, we want coma to be recognized as a treatable and recoverable clinical condition.”
The goals of the Curing Coma Campaign are to better understand the underlying causes of coma whether from brain injury or illness and to develop treatments to recover brain function and save human lives. The campaign has established an infrastructure to support new research to improve diagnosis and management of comatose patients, provide public and professional education for timely medical care, and work with major organizations overseeing brain research to help bring hope to patients and families that have a loved one with a prolonged disorder of consciousness.
The World Coma Day program will begin at 00:00 GMT (London time) on March 22 and continue for 24 hours; each session will be broadcast three different times during the day. World Coma Day provides international perspectives of individuals and experts from around the world. Topics will include:
Introduction to Coma: This session serves as an introduction to the history of coma and the different clinical entities after a severe brain injury. It will provide the story of a post-coma patient who recovered well and provides background on how providers assess patients in the ICU.
Dream Team: Who are all the people involved in the journey of coma patients? This session will provide a description of the various members of the professional/medical team and what they do, as well as give an overview of the path of recovery in different countries.
Patient Advocacy: The patient needs strong support from their families, support groups and researchers. This session will feature a presentation from individuals in each of these areas who will provide their perspective on the challenges of dealing with coma.
LIVE Discussion: Will include expert moderators in the field and featured speakers from all parts of the globe.
Behavioral diagnosis: This session will focus on the specifics of a behavioral diagnosis of coma and the questions and considerations. It will also feature the story of a patient who suffered from locked-in syndrome.
Prognosis: This session will focus on the prognosis and recovery of coma patients and how we manage them. It also features the case of a patient who was diagnosed as brain dead, but whose body functioned for many years, as well as an assessment of the current factors that we can take into account to predict the outcome of a patient.
Brain Imaging in Coma: This session will cover the basics of how we use brain imaging to improve diagnosis and prognosis of coma & disorders of consciousness (DoC). It also features the case of an unresponsive patient who had positive results on multimodal brain imaging and subsequently recovered. There will also be explanation on how we can use electroencephalography in the ICU to better document the state of a patient.
Treatment: This session will provide an overview of the different ways we can try to improve recovery. It also features the case of a patient who paradoxically responded to the sedative medication zolpidem (he "wakes up" when he takes zolpidem but just for the time of the medication. After the medication wears off, he goes back to previous state) and what we learned from that case.
Rehabilitation: This session features an overview of what happens during the rehabilitation phase after a patient is released from the ICU, as well as a patient story about their rehabilitation and an overview of ongoing research related to rehabilitation.
Coma Memories: This session discusses the memories patients may have of coma or near death experiences. You will hear testimony from a patient who had a near-death experience (NDE) while in a coma due to meningitis. The session also provides an overview of the basic explanations of NDE and hypothesis of the origin of these particular phenomena.
Pediatric: This session focuses specifically on children, and what we know about children who have had a severe brain injury. It features the story of one family’s experience, as well as a review of the state of the art for diagnosis, prognosis and therapy in the pediatric population of DoC.
Ethics in coma and DoC: This session will discuss various ethical issues and challenges around the theme of coma and disorders of consciousness.
For more information and to register for World Coma Day, please visit https://www.curingcoma.org/events2/world-coma-day.
About the Neurocritical Care Society
With more than 2,700 members, the Neurocritical Care Society (NCS) is a multidisciplinary, international organization whose mission is to improve the outcomes for patients with life-threatening neurological illnesses. Our membership is comprised of physicians, pharmacists, nurses and advanced practice providers, and researchers who treat and study a wide range of neurological conditions including stroke, traumatic brain injury and post-cardiac arrest. NCS offers a plethora of educational products, as well as certifications, research, and resources to neuroscience practitioners globally to ensure the delivery of the most optimal and equitable care to patients, and educates clinicians on best practices in neuroscience. NCS is headquartered in Chicago. Please visit us at www.neurocriticalcare.org.
