Dramatic license is often taken in relating stories of patients who, after a serious brain injury, fall into a vegetative state and then miraculously awaken. In reality there are no proven treatments to help these patients regain consciousness. However, recent reports suggest that three such patients experienced dramatic improvements when given the commonly prescribed sleeping medication zolpidem, commercially known as Ambien.
In order to gather systematic date, the Pennsylvania Department of Health has awarded the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute at MossRehab, the nationally known rehabilitation hospital a grant to study how often this type of response occurs; whether less dramatic benefits can be seen in larger numbers of patients; and whether it can be determined which individuals are likely to benefit.
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