[Sleep in vegetative state patients and recuperated cases from vegetative states (author's transl)]

Twenty-four hours polygraphic recording of EEG, electrooculogram and EMG were performed on 8 vegetative state patients and 4 recuperated cases, and the differences of the sleep pattern between two groups were discussed. It was difficult to divide the sleep pattern into normal four stages, because the frequency of EEG in vegetative state patients were very slow. So we divided it into the following 4 patterns; awake, shallow sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep. The sleep in vegetative state patients was interrupted by short duration and appeared at random during day and night. The amount of sleep in vegetative state patients increased proportion to severity of vegetative state. Rate of shallow sleep of them was high. REM sleep was seen in all the cases, but its cycle and lasting time were different in each case. The rate of shallow sleep prior to REM sleep was lower than normal pattern and the change of sleep state was atypical. Few hump and spindle wave appeared. For the reasons mentioned above, the sleep pattern in vegetative state patients was far from physiological sleep. On the other hand, the sleep in recuperated patients was more similar to the normal pattern than that of vegetative cases, but the rate of shallow sleep was as high as the vegetative cases. REM sleep was irregular and the change of sleep was also atypical. Therefore, the sleep pattern in recuperated patients was also far from physiological sleep, though it was better than that of vegetative cases.