Schumacher ski accident, coma and recovery

[Jonnycraig]

It's been over two weeks now. Are they still holding him in induced coma ? That can't be too good, can it

Look up Kevin Pearce and the documentary about him 'The Crash Reel'.

He was a US Olympic snowboarder before suffering a TBI, was in Intensive Care for 4 weeks, before starting a 5 month recovery period to being able to go home. He never snowboarded again professionally but has recovered to the point of living a 'Normal' life.

Schumachers recovery period is likely to be in the months and years, not the days and weeks.

[Gridlock]

Crash Reel is a very good watch, if you see what I mean, but it didn't half make me think about Red Bull and Monster in a new way.

[Manoah2u]

zanardi's words:

"Don’t Dream It’s Over"

moral of the story:

Schumacher's still alive. it isn't over. It'll be a long run to 'get back in shape', but somebody as competetive as Schumi,
will fight and 'race' to get back into shape. Yes, it'll take years, not weeks. But he'll get there eventually. If it means
he'll be handicapped? look at the guy above.
Schumacher raced his second f1 career with brain damage as a resutl of his 09 motorcrash. That is no small effort.
He'll get back on his feet.
it'll just take time.

Schumi for FIA president in the future.

[kalinka]

A famous Hungarian brain surgeon who I mentioned before said last week, that the max. time for induced coma which is desirable is 2-3 weeks. But he said, it's still a chance after that. In his experience, the max time for a patient being in coma and recovered ( after a similar injury ) was 3 years ! Of course we don't know the level of recovery...but again it depends on many things.

[Traction]

A friend of mine`s son suffered a head injury 2 years back, when a heavy steel, kids jungle gym toppled over and landed on his head. The child was in an induced coma for just over 10 days whilst the doctors tried everything to relieve the swelling, even removing part his skull.During that time there were positive signs but ultimately and sadly the child never recovered and eventually passed away.

Im not saying that Schumacher will not recover but everything I have read about his injuries and all the feedback that has been reported is just so similar to what we as a group experienced during those 10 days , that I cannot find any reason to be hopefull for a recovery.

European Ironman champion Camilla Pedersen crashed and hit her head while bike training and spent 19 day in induced coma in September last year, she is back to training now

Like I said, I'm not saying he won't recover. Just based on personal experience I'm not optimistic.

[skoop]

my mother suffered from a serious brain bleed was held in coma for 7 weeks. her injuries weren't nearly as severe as michaels. so i'm expecting him to be at least 6 weeks in coma.
the difficulty right now is to prevent his brain from getting spastic (having a stroke). there's a 50/50 chance this will happen.
when he's stable enough he will learn how to breathe on his own again and then the doctors will slowly reduce his medicine so he can wake up again.
then you can see what damages his brain has. for example: can he speak? can he eat on his own? are parts of his body paralized?
then the reha begins where he'll learn to live on his own again - if possible.
if anyone wants to, i can ellaborate on this more. of course i'm no doctor and i can only say what the doctors told us 2 years ago

[xDama]

@ManoahU2: the comparison between what happened with Zanardi and what happened with Schumacher isn't relevant. Zanardi sustained enourmous injuries to the body, wich is a huge difference with injuries to the head. I'm not downplaying his immense recovery and/or the fact that Schumacher will be able to recover or not, but the 2 just don't compare at all.

The head and especially the brain is still the most complex part of the human body and damage to it is very, very hard to repair. Just like skoop notices, he could very well be paralized, disabled, motorically disabled, etc... And no matter how competitive or fit you are, if it's broken it's broken.

[munudeges]

Please do not misinterpret this gentlemen, but doesn't the saying "The postman always calls twice" ring a bell here?

I fear so.

[adrianjordan]

my mother suffered from a serious brain bleed was held in coma for 7 weeks. her injuries weren't nearly as severe as michaels. so i'm expecting him to be at least 6 weeks in coma.
the difficulty right now is to prevent his brain from getting spastic (having a stroke). there's a 50/50 chance this will happen.
when he's stable enough he will learn how to breathe on his own again and then the doctors will slowly reduce his medicine so he can wake up again.
then you can see what damages his brain has. for example: can he speak? can he eat on his own? are parts of his body paralized?
then the reha begins where he'll learn to live on his own again - if possible.
if anyone wants to, i can ellaborate on this more. of course i'm no doctor and i can only say what the doctors told us 2 years ago

Hi. Sorry but as this is a technical forum I don't think it's out of line for me to clarify a couple of your points where it's possible that you haven't 100% understood what the doctors were saying or how it relates here.

Your mother had a brain bleed, which is a type of stroke (the other being a blood clot on the brain), so the risk to her would be further bleeds. The damage with bleeds either occurs when the Intra-Cranial Pressure (ICP) increases due to the blood taking up volume normally occupied by the brain, or when the bleed causes the blood supply to a part of the brain to be cut off, causing the tissue in that area of the brain to die.

Michael suffered a traumatic head injury and the risk for him was, from what I understand, swelling of the brain itself as a result of the injury sustained. This also causes the ICP to increase. However the risk to him is not so much bleeding as it is the swelling of the tissues.

Both of these can cause similar outcomes though, depending purely on which parts of the brain are damaged.

Spastic is a different term altogether and describes someone who suffers from muscle weakness, usually due to cerebral palsy, but the same symptoms can be the same for someone who has suffered a stroke or serious brain injury.

As for the 50/50 statistic...I'm not sure how accurate or not that is, but it does sound like something doctors would tell you to prepare you for the worst while still allowing hope...if that makes sense...

[F1NAC]

Little update

Doctors began tests on stricken F1 legend Michael Schumacher's brain today in a bid to precisely locate the area where he suffered massive damage in his pre-Christmas ski accident.

Schumacher has been in a artificially-induced coma for 15 days and remains stable, but critically ill.

The medical team treating him in Grenoble, France, that there are still great fears of "unexpected complications," such as a brain brain hemorrhage and infection, according to reports.

A small part of his skull has been removed in a bid to relieve pressure on his brain, according to a Zurich paper at the weekend,.

Swiss neurosurgeon Frédéric Rossi told the Zurich Tagesanzeiger that the list of dangers from such an op "is long, ranging from swelling to bleeding to the accidental opening of the brain's outer membrane."

[Helios]

Source? This doesn't really seem to be an update to me...

[Gerhardsa]

Source? This doesn't really seem to be an update to me...

Daily mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formul ... ident.html

[i70q7m7ghw]

That same "update" was used several days ago, I think the media are just republishing it.

[adrianjordan]

Source? This doesn't really seem to be an update to me...

Daily mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formul ... ident.html

So not a reputable source then

[gavingav1]

and from the same source : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -life.html