Sensory Stimulation to Improve Arousal in Comatose Patients After Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Neurological Sciences
Li, J., Cheng, Q., et al. (2020).
Neurological Sciences, 41(9), 2367-2376.
This systematic review investigates the effects of sensory stimulation on arousal in patients in a comatose state secondary to traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Not stated
From database inception to December 2019
Published studies excluding case studies, reviews, and conference papers/abstracts
10
<div>There was some evidence to support sensory stimulation interventions to improve arousal in patients in a comatose state secondary to TBI. Additional findings included:</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #333333;">There was some evidence to support the use of either unimodal or multimodal sensory stimulation.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333;">Sensory stimulation provided by family members generally resulted in greater improvements in arousal than stimulation provided by staff/personnel (2 studies). </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333;">The use of familiar and emotionally salient material generally demonstrated positive, short-term effectiveness (8 studies). </span></li>
</ul>
<div>However, the authors of this review could not make any strong statements about sensory stimulation's overall treatment efficacy for comatose patients due to heterogeneity between studies, limited and low-quality research, small sample sizes, and the use of sub-optimal assessments within included studies. Additionally, findings from earlier research may be influenced by the habituation effect due to simple and highly repetitive sensory stimulation protocols.</div>
