Extending Communication for Patients with Disorders of Consciousness

X Liang; L Kuhlmann; LA Johnston; DB Grayden; S Vogrin; R Crossley; K Fuller; M Lourensz; MJ Cook

Journal article

Extending Communication for Patients with Disorders of Consciousness

X Liang, L Kuhlmann, LA Johnston, DB Grayden, S Vogrin, R Crossley, K Fuller, M Lourensz, MJ Cook

Journal of Neuroimaging | Published : 2014

DOI: 10.1111/j.1552-6569.2012.00744.x

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The difficulty of distinguishing disorders of consciousness from certain disorders of communication leads to the possibility of false diagnosis. Our aim is to communicate with patients with disorders of consciousness through asking them to answer questions with "yes/no" by performing mental imagery tasks using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). METHODS: A 1.5 T fMRI study with 5 patients and a control group is presented. Speech comprehension, mental imagery, and question-answer tests were performed. RESULTS: The imagery task of mental calculation produced equally distinct activation patterns when compared to navigation and motor imagery in controls. For con..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Levin Kuhlmann Author

Leigh Johnston Author

David Grayden Author

Simon Vogrin Author

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust. We thank the patients and their families for participation in this study, and Matthew Davis and Jennifer Rodd for providing the sentences and software used in the speech comprehension task that we adapted for Australian English.