Efforts to stir stricken leader from coma begin
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times | January 10, 2006
JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon breathed on his own and moved a hand and a leg as doctors yesterday began the arduous and delicate process of rousing him from the medically induced coma he had been in since suffering a massive stroke last week.
The 77-year-old Israeli leader remained unconscious and in critical condition, with the physicians still unsure what degree of damage has been dealt to his cognitive abilities by the cerebral hemorrhage he suffered Wednesday.
Still, the initial signs were read as hopeful ones, both by the team of Hadassah Medical Center physicians and by Israelis awaiting the tiniest scrap of good news about their stricken prime minister.
As doctors began weaning Sharon off the anesthetics that had kept him deeply sedated since Thursday, he began breathing spontaneously, said Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the hospital director who serves as a spokesman for the medical team.
''This is the first sign of some sort of activity in his brain," Mor-Yosef told reporters. The prime minister, however, remains connected to the respirator.
Several hours later, Sharon moved his right hand and right leg in response to pain stimuli, doctors said. The stroke affected the right side of his brain, and paralysis is likelier in the left side of his body, which it controls.
Mor-Yosef described the movement of Sharon's right hand and leg in response to pain stimulus as ''slight, but significant."
''In this case, that's a positive reaction," he said. more at link:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/mi...0/doctors_see_signs_of_improvement_in_sharon/