Dialogue with the patient in low consciousness state after severe brain damages ²¹⁷⁵

In this work we study the possibility of children communication who suffer from long-term deep altered states of consciousness (ASC) after severe brain damage. The authors developed a scale that can be used to assess the clinical psychologist in eval¬uation of patients' signaling capabilities in a vegetative state, minimal consciousness, etc. Scale Сommunication Аctivity — Bykova, Lukyanov (SCABL) has a significant correlation with the scale of Rancho Los Amiqos Medical Center Level of Cognitive Functioning (RLAS-LCF-R) and Dobrokhotova-Zaitsev scale of recovery of con¬sciousness. Scale captures a significant amount of communication signals (104 sig¬nals), a measure of their manifestations, being a sensitive tool for the objectification of recovery of children consciousness, both with verbal communication, and with¬out it. Totally 28 children who underwent severe traumatic brain injury, hypoxic brain damage and rupture of arteriovenous malformation from 3 to 16 years were involved. Each child, starting with the stabilization of his/her vital functions in the acute period of recovery and without medical sedation was held 3—5 tests. This study allows picturing not only the picture of the recovery of various communication sig¬nals (physical, vegetative, facial, gestural, verbal) after cerebral trauma, but also shows the change in children's contact with outer world. The study reveals a differ¬ence in the restoration of communication in two groups of children: who recovered to clear consciousness and remain with profound disabilities.

Keywords: children, severe brain damage, long-term impairment of consciousness, communication capabilities, Scale Сommunication Activity — Bykova, Lukianov (SCABL)

Column: Empirical Researches

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpp.2015230302