Feasibility Study of Virtual Reality to Promote the Awakening of Patients in a State of Minimal Consciousness

Advances in neurosurgery and neuroresuscitation have improved patients' prognosis. However, 2% of serious head injuries progress to a vegetative state, this condition persisting at 1 year for 1% of these patients.

The minimum state of consciousness is to be distinguished from coma and vegetative state, it is a condition marked by a severe alteration of consciousness in which there are minimal and fluctuating, but obvious, signs of environmental consciousness. There is a minimum degree of response to some stimulations, response generally fluctuating over time. In practice, these patients are unable to consistently follow simple instructions, but they often have a preserved visual pursuit (proper rotation of the head when someone enters the room, prolonged eye follow-up, etc.). Patients with minimal awareness have been shown to perceive emotions and pain. These patients may exhibit behavioural and emotional changes (smiling, crying motivated), induced by verbal stimulations (familiar voice). But these events remain fluctuating during the day or according to the days and interlocutors.

For the moment, the most commonly accepted strategy since the 1990s remains sensory stimulation (SS), while knowing that this term includes extremely varied stimulations (sensory, olfactory, auditory, fixation on a mirror, etc.) without the practice of this technique being well defined and systematized.

It has been shown that a regular family visit program with auditory, emotional and tactile stimuli improves the state of consciousness of these patients. Physicians also know that this SS must be personalized and adapted to the patient's tolerance and premorbid preferences.

SS programmes are poorly standardized. Programmes generally consist of a simple, moderate to high intensity, non-standardized stimulation, presented repetitively and frequently. Indeed, it has been shown that stimulation must begin early, be frequent, and continue until reactions appear.

In this project, investigator want to use the new technologies now commonly used such as photos, videos or sounds taken by smartphone's relatives of the brain patient-injured in order to make a personalized 3D film using film editing software and a predefined film frame, by integrating autobiographical elements and emotional, multisensory (binaural sound, vibration) integrating, if possible, a certain interactivity (haptic feedback, triggering of videos by the patient's eyes).

The objective is to develop an innovative multi-sensory stimulation technique through a personalised enriched environment to induce, facilitate and accelerate the return to consciousness of patients in altered state of consciousness during their initial management.