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Louis Viljoen, a Vegetative State patient from Springs, South Africa, in 1999 became the first patient in the world to be aroused from the Vegetative State by zolpidem (ambien) a well known and widely used sleeping pill.
Louis Viljoen''s awakening documents the discovery of brain dormancy in conditions of brain damage, its effect on cerebral blood flow, and its response to zolpidem. Louis' case was first published in the South African Medical Journal of 2000. The effect of zolpidem was subsequently confirmed in animal studies in 2001 and 2002. Studies in responder patients to zolpidem after brain damage, including a child and a patient after stroke were published in the medical journal Arzneimittelforschung in 2004. More studies followed and continue to follow by the same or other authors. A long term follow up in Louis and other patients was published in the journal NeuroRehabilitation in 2006. In 2010 Hall et al published a study in the Clinical Neurophysiology Journal that showed that dormant brain regions have a slow wave rythmic electrical activity that desynchronises after zolpidem, but not after other sedative drugs such as zopiclone. The largest pilot study on zolpidem to date was published by Nyakale et al in 2010. It showed that the use of zolpidem after brain damage is effective and safe, not only in Disorders of Consciousness, but also in severe neurological disability in fully conscious patients after stroke, traumatic brain injury or other causes. |