Seventeen patients with persistent vegetative state were evaluated for the causes, types of the brain injury, Glasgow Coma scales, medical complications, EEG and somatosensory evoked potential studies.

The mean age of patients was 42.9±8.5 years(range:9∼76)(Table 1). The causes were trauma, stroke, cerebral hypoxia and tumor as shown in table 2. The most common type of the brain injury was intracranial hemorrhage(Table 3). Initial Glasgow coma scale score was 6.3±1.3 and minimal improvement to 9.6±1.1 in 3 months after onset(Table 4). infection(respiratory and genitourinary) was the most common complication during the vegetative state(Table 5). EEG during awakening showed marked abnormal pattern. Cortical somtosensory evoked potentials were abnormal in 72.2%, absent potential in 8 cases(44.4%) and others showed diminishing amplitude or delayed latency of the N1 response(Table 7).

Keywords :Vegetative state, Brain injury