Incredible video ‘heals’ a man with a serious brain injury after taking Ambian’s pill

The Dutch man, who has been unable to walk or talk for the past eight years, regained control of his body just 20 minutes after taking the sleeping pill.

A patient named Richard was only 29 years old when he suffered a serious brain injury after choking on a piece of meat while eating with friends.

After suffering a heart attack, a lack of oxygen in his brain left him with a rare neurological disorder called kinetic mutation.

“It means he is awake, even though he is not aware of his condition and has an inability to move and speak spontaneously,” according to CBC neurosurgeon Dr. Hisa Arts explained.

“He can’t eat, and he’s mostly indifferent to thirst, pain, hunger, and doesn’t show emotions. He’s not in a coma. So he’s not a disorder of consciousness, but a disorder of declining motivation. He has no drive. Eats, speaks or moves.”

Amid reports of how the sleeping pill Zolpidem (marketed as Ambion in the U.S.) affects coma patients, doctors sought permission from the family to try the drug on current Richard, now 38 – with surprising results.

The video shows the patient in a wheelchair, feeling unable to communicate or answer questions; But less than 30 minutes after administering the drug, he is talking to the doctor, showing him how to use a toothbrush, and even walking. He also had to call his family and talk to them for the first time in almost a decade.

“Within 20 minutes, the patient began to have spontaneous conversations, asked the nurse how his wheelchair should be operated, and requested fast food,” read the study, published in the journal Cortex. “He managed to walk when supported by staff and called his father, who had not heard his son’s voice in years.”

“Despite a clear retrograde amnesia, going back three years before the brain injury and a clear lack of hearing, he was cheerful, alert and showed interest in the people and objects around him.”

Studying his brain patterns, the researchers found that Pang’s pill was relaxing the highly active parts of his brain, drowning out the rest.

“Surprisingly, what we saw was that without zolpidem, the brain had an extreme effect of certain brain waves or excessive activity,” Arts said. “And this excessive activity produced noise that stopped motor function and speech. We saw that Zolpidem actually reduced this excess to the brain function hidden there that could happen again.”

She had her brain like an orchestra in which the violin was playing at the level of deafness and no other instrument could be heard. The medication reduced the noise and allowed the whole group to play in harmony.

Alas, the effects of the drug were only temporary; Within two hours Richard returned to his reactive state.

Giving it up on a consistent day found that the effect weakens every day; By the fifth day it had no significant effect. Meanwhile giving multiple doses in a single day did not show any additional improvement, but only due to drowsiness.

Eventually, her caregivers had to compromise on the regime of administering the drug for special occasions, such as family visits or dentist checkups.

Encouraged by the drug’s success, however, the researchers devised a different strategy to achieve similar results, implanting electrodes and sending stimulants to the brain to calm the noisy parts, the same as the sleeping pill was doing.

“We did a deep brain stimulation on this patient a few months ago,” Arts said. “And he’s already showing some significant improvements in motor function. Now he can go for a walk permanently, and he can even eat his favorite food again. So the sleeping pill is no longer necessary because it’s controlled at another level of awareness. Right now. J. “

While the team adopts the strategy it can only work in this isolation case, but they hope that this success can help many equally affected patients.