Effect of frequency of multimodal coma stimulation on the consciousness levels of traumatic brain injury comatose patients

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of multimodal coma stimulation on the conscious levels of head injury comatose patients and to find out which of the two protocols of coma stimulation, i.e. administrating twice a day or 5-times a day is more beneficial.Methods: Thirty comatose patients with traumatic head injury (GCS < 8) were selected and were divided into three groups randomly. Group A (n = 10) received multimodal coma stimulation 5-times a day (20 minutes each session), Group B (n = 10) received stimulation twice a day (50 minutes each session) and Group C (n = 10) received conventional physiotherapy twice daily. Subjects in all the three groups received treatment for 2 weeks.Results and conclusion: The results showed a significant difference (p < 0.01) for Glasgow Coma Scale as well as Western Neuro Sensory Stimulation Profile scores between Groups A & C and B & C, i.e. multimodal coma stimulation is effective as compared to the control group. The results also revealed a significant difference (p < 0.01) between Groups A, B and C on the Western Neuro Sensory Stimulation Profile but a non-significant difference (p > 0.01) on the Glasgow coma scale. This indicates that short sessions of high frequency can be more beneficial.