CMIC Seminar: Erika Molteni and Joseph Jacobs

Speaker: Erika Molteni and Joseph Jacobs, UCL-CS
UCL Contact: Dominique Drai (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 31 May 17, 13:00 - 14:00
Venue: A V Hill LT

Abstract

Erika Molteni

Title: Quantitative assessment in the pediatric severe Disorders of Consciousness

Abstract:

Severe disorders of consciousness (DOC) comprise a spectrum of syndromes with severely altered consciousness, of which the lower boundary is coma. Although patients at the exit from a coma do have periods of eye opening, they are unaware of themselves and/or the environment, and they can be completely unable to show purposeful interaction with the environment. More generally, because patients with severe DOC suffer from perceptual, attentional, and motor deficits, the detection of signs of awareness – still largely based on neurobehavioral methods - and the prediction of patients’ recovery are extremely challenging in this population. This fact becomes even more important in the case of pediatric patients, in which the acquired brain injury disrupts the normal developmental process and dramatically affects the learning curves, in both the cognitive and motor domains. For circumventing the limitation of the neurobehavioral assessment methods, during the past decade researchers have focused on neurophysiological and neuroimaging approaches to the diagnosis and prognosis of severe DOC, thus paving the way for the brain-based detection of the evidence of consciousness and the quantification of the residual cognitive functions. The presentation will summarize my experience at the Acquired Brain Injury Unit of the IRCCS E. Medea: a post-acute rehabilitation setting for infants and children at the exit from a coma.

Joseph Jacobs

Title and abstract tbc