Could Ambien unlock mystery to treating brain trauma patients?

About a third of all people who suffer from severe brain injury, do not survive. For those who do, they either drift in and out of consciousness, or are in a complete coma. Their future is mostly uncertain.

Many families are told there is no hope because there is no treatment proven to speed up or improve recovery.

For some patients,however, a medication given for an unintended use, is opening the eyes of patients, doctors and researchers.

There are nearly 300,000 people in the United States who are trapped in avegetative or minimally-conscious state as a result of an accident, fall, violence, or some other type of brain trauma.

Their mind is shrouded beneath the shell of a rigid body, drifting in a realm that even many medical professionals believe can't be reached.

Dr. Lori Grafton is the director of the Brain Injury Program at Carolinas Rehabilitation, one of the nation's most comprehensive rehabilitationfacilities in the country.

Grafton is physiatrist which is a medical doctor with specialized training in physical medicine, rehabilitation and pain medicine. She says a dose of Ambien may be the solution for some brain trauma patients.

Ambien is a pharmaceutical drug designed to help an individual sleep by lowering brain activity, but in some cases, it has the unexplained effect of waking up victims of brain trauma from the deepest depths of their consciousness.

The exact mechanism is still a mystery.

"It's rare, it's not something that works all the time, but from my standpoint, it's worth a try, especially for these patients where nothing else has worked," Grafton said.

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Could Ambien unlock mystery to treating brain trauma patients?