American and European Guidelines on Disorders of Consciousness: Ethical Challenges of Implementation

Emerging ethical issues in patients with disorders of consciousness: A clinical guide

Clinicians who manage patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) commonly encounter challenging ethical issues. Consciousness disorders include the vegetative state, the minimally conscious state, and covert consciousness resulting from cognitive-motor dissociation. The practice landscape of ethical issues encompasses making the correct diagnosis; making and communicating an accurate prognosis despite irreducible uncertainty; conducting effective shared decision-making with a lawful surrogate decision-maker to deliver goal-concordant care; providing optimal medical, rehabilitative, and palliative care across the spectrum of care sites: acute inpatient, neurorehabilitative, chronic, and palliative; respecting the human rights of and advocating for DoC patient, an historically under-served population and, when appropriate, properly participating in decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining therapy. Research and translational issues in DoC patients include the challenges posed by emerging diagnostics and therapeutics and their prudential integration into clinical practice in the service of patients and their families. Our conceptual analysis of these ethical issues and our practical advice to address them comprise the subject material of this chapter.

Recovery of consciousness after acute brain injury: a narrative review

BACKGROUND

Disorders of consciousness (DoC) are frequently encountered in both, acute and chronic brain injuries. In many countries, early withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments is common practice for these patients even though the accuracy of predicting recovery is debated and delayed recovery can be seen. In this review, we will discuss theoretical concepts of consciousness and pathophysiology, explore effective strategies for management, and discuss the accurate prediction of long-term clinical outcomes. We will also address research challenges.

MAIN TEXT

DoC are characterized by alterations in arousal and/or content, being classified as coma, unresponsive wakefulness syndrome/vegetative state, minimally conscious state, and confusional state. Patients with willful modulation of brain activity detectable by functional MRI or EEG but not by behavioral examination is a state also known as covert consciousness or cognitive motor dissociation. This state may be as common as every 4th or 5th patient without behavioral evidence of verbal command following and has been identified as an independent predictor of long-term functional recovery. Underlying mechanisms are uncertain but intact arousal and thalamocortical projections maybe be essential. Insights into the mechanisms underlying DoC will be of major importance as these will provide a framework to conceptualize treatment approaches, including medical, mechanical, or electoral brain stimulation.

CONCLUSIONS

We are beginning to gain insights into the underlying mechanisms of DoC, identifying novel advanced prognostication tools to improve the accuracy of recovery predictions, and are starting to conceptualize targeted treatments to support the recovery of DoC patients. It is essential to determine how these advancements can be implemented and benefit DoC patients across a range of clinical settings and global societal systems. The Curing Coma Campaign has highlighted major gaps knowledge and provides a roadmap to advance the field of coma science with the goal to support the recovery of patients with DoC.

Improving Neuroplasticity through Robotic Verticalization Training in Patients with Minimally Conscious State: A Retrospective Study

In disorders of consciousness, verticalization is considered an effective type of treatment to improve motor and cognitive recovery. Our purpose is to investigate neurophysiological effects of robotic verticalization training (RVT) in patients with minimally conscious state (MCS). Thirty subjects affected by MCS due to traumatic or vascular brain injury, attending the intensive Neurorehabilitation Unit of the IRCCS Neurolesi (Messina, Italy), were included in this retrospective study. They were equally divided into two groups: the control group (CG) received traditional verticalization with a static bed and the experimental group (EG) received advanced robotic verticalization using the Erigo device. Each patient was evaluated using both clinical scales, including Levels of Cognitive Functioning (LCF) and Functional Independence Measure (FIM), and quantitative EEG pre (T0) and post each treatment (T1). The treatment lasted for eight consecutive weeks, and sessions were held three times a week, in addition to standard neurorehabilitation. In addition to a notable improvement in clinical parameters, such as functional (FIM) (p < 0.01) and cognitive (LCF) (p < 0.01) outcomes, our findings showed a significant modification in alpha and beta bands post-intervention, underscoring the promising effect of the Erigo device to influence neural plasticity and indicating a noteworthy difference between pre-post intervention. This was not observed in the CG. The observed changes in alpha and beta bands underscore the potential of the Erigo device to induce neural plasticity. The device's custom features and programming, tailored to individual patient needs, may contribute to its unique impact on brain responses.

International survey on the implementation of the European and American guidelines on disorders of consciousness

Diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic procedures for patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (pDoCs) vary significantly across countries and clinical settings, likely due to organizational factors (e.g., research vs. non-academic hospitals), expertise and availability of resources (e.g., financial and human). Two international guidelines, one from the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) and one from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) in collaboration with the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), were developed to facilitate consistent practice among professionals working with this challenging patient population. While the recommendations of both guidelines agree in principle, it remains an open issue how to implement them into clinical practice in the care pathway for patients with pDoCs. We conducted an online survey to explore health professional clinical practices related to the management of patients with pDoCs, and compare said practices with selected recommendations from both the guidelines. The survey revealed that while some recommendations are being followed, others are not and/or may require more honing/specificity to enhance their clinical utility. Particular attention should be given to the implementation of a multimodal assessment of residual consciousness, to the detection and treatment of pain, and to the impact of restrictions imposed by COVID-19 pandemics on the involvement of patients' families/representatives.

The importance of instrumental assessment in disorders of consciousness: a comparison between American, European, and UK International recommendations

The use of instrumental tools for improving both the diagnostic accuracy and the prognostic soundness in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) plays an important role. However, the most recent international guidelines on DOC published by the American and the European Academies of Neurology and by the UK Royal College of Physicians contain heterogeneous recommendations on the implementation of these techniques in the clinical routine for both diagnosis and prognosis. With the present work, starting from the comparison of the DOC guidelines’ recommendations, we look for possible explanations behind such discrepancies considering the adopted methodologies and the reference health systems that could have affected the guidelines’ perspectives. We made a provocative argument about the need to find the most appropriate common methodology to retrieve and grade the evidence, increase the meta-analytic studies, and reduce the health policies that influence on the guidelines development that, in turn, should inform the health policies with the strongest scientific evidence.