Rehabilitation forecast markers: complex assessment of damaged brain using electroencephalogram (EEG) and somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP)

Abstract

Identifying rehabilitatory prognosis markers while the patient is in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is an important diagnostic task that rehabilitation program depends on. Post-coma recovery procedures reintegrate functions of damaged brain regions in patients with consciousness disorders and aim for improving thalamocortical interactions in terms of neuroplasticity. In this paper we study electroencephalographic (EEG) and somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP) data of 50 patients with post-coma consciousness disorders as a result of severe brain damage. The reasons for consciousness disorders in studied patients include acute blood circulation arrest, traumatic brain injury and brain hypoxia. Patients were diagnosed with EEG and SSEP on the day of arrival to ICU and between 35th and 45th day of their stay in the hospital. As a result of this study, we identified neuroplasticity markers related to rehabilitatory process on the basis of assessment of data produced by widely accessible neurophysiological methodologies.