Cardiac arrest & resuscitation
AWAreness during REsuscitation - II: A multi-center study of consciousness and awareness in cardiac arrest
Authors' conclusion
Consciousness. awareness and cognitive processes may occur during CA. The emergence of normal EEG may reflect a resumption of a network-level of cognitive activity, and a biomarker of consciousness, lucidity and RED (authentic "near-death" experiences).
Study context
- Population
- In-hospital cardiac arrest patients undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); community cardiac arrest (CA) survivors (cross-sectional arm)In-hospital CA (IHCA)
- Participants
- 567 patients
- Outcome
- Consciousness and awareness during CPR (recall of awareness and cognitive experiences; audiovisual testing; EEG and rSO2 monitoring)
Methodological details25-site, in-hospital, complementary cross-sectional community CA study
- 25-site
- In-hospital
- Complementary cross-sectional community CA study
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Survival, interviews and CA memories/perceptions suggestive of consciousness
- Survived
- 53(9.3%)
- Completed interviews (of survivors)
- 28 of these (52.8%)
- Reported CA memories/perceptions suggestive of consciousness
- 11(39.3%)
- CPR-induced consciousness (CPRIC)
- 2/28(7.1%)
- Emergence from coma in post-resuscitation period
- 2/28(7.1%)
- Dream-like experiences
- 3/28(10.7%)
- Transcendent recalled experience of death (RED)
- 6/28(21.4%)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Recognition of audiovisual awareness test stimuli (interviewed survivors)
- Identified the auditory stimulus
- 1/28(3.5%)
- Nobody identified the visual image
- Low survival limited the ability to examine for implicit learning
Cerebral oxygenation and EEG during CPR
- Mean rSO2 (marked cerebral ischemia)
- 43%
- Normal EEG activity (delta, theta and alpha) consistent with consciousness emerged as long as this into CPR
- 35-60 minutes
Cross-sectional community CA survivors' experiences
- Community CA survivors' experiences reinforced the categories and identified another: delusions (misattribution of medical events)
- 126
Original publication
AWAreness during REsuscitation - II: A multi-center study of consciousness and awareness in cardiac arrest. Resuscitation. Published 7 July 2023. doi:10.
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