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In what is believed to be a world first, scientists have reversed brain damage in a toddler that drowned in a swimming pool. Using oxygen therapy, scientists were able to restore her ability to walk and talk just months after the accident, in which she spent 15 minutes submerged in a swimming pool and two hours where her heart did not beat on its own.
The accident took place in February 2016. Two-year-old Eden Carlson had managed to get through a baby gate and fall into the family swimming pool and was in the 5 degree Celsius water for up to 15 minutes before being discovered.
After being resuscitated and treated in hospital for just over a month, she was unresponsive to all stimuli. She was immobile and constantly squirmed and shook her head. MRI scans showed deep injury to the brain's gray matter, as well as loss of white and gray matter.
In a bid to reverse the brain damage, researchers at the LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine and the University of North Dakota School of Medicine began treating her with two types of oxygen therapy.
[...] Concluding, the researchers say that to their knowledge, this is the first reported case of gray matter loss and white matter atrophy (types of brain damage) reversal with any therapy and that treatment with oxygen should be considered in similar cases. "Such low-risk medical treatment may have a profound effect on recovery of function in similar patients who are neurologically devastated by drowning."
Source: http://www.newsweek.com/eden-carlson-brain-damage-reversed-drowning-638628
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 20 2017, @08:44PM (8 children)
Sure the treatment works at age 2 but how effective would it be at 15 or 35 or 75?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:02PM (1 child)
Hey! Don't spoil my latest Halloween movie script!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:08PM
It's like a severed finger-tip, it might grow back, it might not, but remember that the finger took nearly 20 years to grow in the first place, so don't expect it to be growing back in 6 months.
As for radical oxygen therapy on a developed, then damaged brain - think if it like a reboot, except without the opportunity to rewire and develop again... I don't think it will turn out particularly well, but it would make a great zombie/Frankenstein story.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:39PM (1 child)
So this little girl gets a huge part of her life back and all you can do is shit all over it cause it might no work for everyone? Why not try being a little more positive?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 20 2017, @11:42PM
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Thursday July 20 2017, @09:57PM (2 children)
Other countries' medical protocols for drowning [newyorker.com] have anecdotally accomplished similar things for kids in the 5-10-year-old range.
P.S. This article is actually about checklists as part of medical protocols. It's a great read -- I point lots of people to it.
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Thursday July 20 2017, @11:53PM (1 child)
Thank you for pointing to a very interesting article.
Checklists are very useful in many areas of human endeavor and are resisted in almost all. I have worked in different third-world countries and there is a "macho" attittude against safety equipment and checklists that makes me wonder if that is the reason they have a third-world country.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 21 2017, @12:46AM
If I had to guess, that macho attitude is also the case in first-world countries, and they just have more reliable/consistent enforcement of more detailed building and health codes. But hey, you could probably email the guy who wrote the article and ask, he may have a additional information on exactly this. The article is sort of a summary of a full-sized book, 'The Checklist Manifesto'.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday July 21 2017, @08:02AM
Does that make this any less interesting or useful?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk