Drug-induced alpha coma.

Drug-Induced Coma and Delirium

Adverse drug events are common in the ICU and frequently have a negative impact on patient outcome and healthcare costs. A number of factors specific to the ICU setting account for this high incidence, including the complexity of the disease states present and the urgency with which they must be treated, the large number of medications administered, the presence of end-organ dysfunction, the fr...

Drug-induced hypoglycemic coma in 102 diabetic patients.

BACKGROUND Hypoglycemic coma is a continuous threat for diabetic patients treated with insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic agents; it may be associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed our clinical experience with drug-induced hypoglycemic coma during a 7-year period. RESULTS The study consisted of 102 patients and included 61 females and 41 males. ...

Alpha coma in a child.

Neurophysiological assessment of alpha pattern coma.

Somatosensory evoked potentials, blink reflexes, and H wave reflexes, were recorded on several days from three patients with alpha pattern coma. Coma was secondary to cardiac arrest in two cases and to brainstem infarction in one. Results are compatible with damage to the brainstem reticular formation with sparing of thalamo-cortical circuits as the main physiopathological characteristic of alp...

Physiologic and prognostic significance of "alpha coma".

A patient with posthypoxic "alpha coma" is described whose EEGs were recorded before coma, within two hours following the onset of coma and after recovery. The differences observed between the alpha activity during coma and that seen before and after suggest that the alpha activity during coma and the physiologic alpha rhythm are different phenomena. This case, as well as others reported, also ...