AWARE — AWAreness during REsuscitation — A prospective study
Sam Parnia, Ken Spearpoint, Gabriele de Vos, Peter Fenwick, Diana Goldberg, Jie Yang, Jiawen Zhu, Katie Baker, Hayley Killingback, Paula McLean, Melanie Wood, A. Maziar Zafari, Neal Dickert, Roland Beisteiner, Fritz Sterz, Michael Berger, Celia Warlow, Siobhan Bullock, Salli Lovett, Russell Metcalfe McMillan, Karim Karabelis, Thomas Paulson, Brian Hancock, Maryam Siassakos, Jerry P. Nolan, Charlotte Jenkinson, Santhana Krishnamurthy, Anthony Hartley, Simon Chakraborty
Resuscitation, Vol. 85, No. 12
Summary
The AWARE I study — 2060 cardiac arrest patients across 15 hospitals in the US, UK, and Austria over four years. 46% of survivors had memories during resuscitation; 9% had full NDEs. One patient (Case 4) had verified veridical perception of events during documented cardiac arrest consistent with an out-of-body experience — the most methodologically rigorous veridical NDE case in the clinical literature. Used calibrated visual targets placed above resuscitation tables to objectively test OBE claims.
Abstract
Cardiac arrest (CA) survivors experience cognitive deficits including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This multi-center study systematically investigated the broad range of cognitive experiences and awareness during CA using a three-stage quantitative and qualitative interview system plus objective testing of the accuracy of recall. Among 2060 CA events, 46% of survivors had memories with 7 major cognitive themes: fear; animals/plants; bright light; violence/persecution; deja-vu; family; and recalling events post-CA. Of these survivors, 9% had near-death experiences and 2% described awareness with explicit recall of seeing and hearing actual events related to their resuscitation (out-of-body experiences). One patient had a verified period of conscious awareness during which verifiable events were accurately recalled in accordance with CA and resuscitation. The data suggest that consciousness and associated cognitive processes may be present despite clinically undetectable consciousness, and may contribute to post-CA psychological complications.
Citation
Sam Parnia, Ken Spearpoint, Gabriele de Vos, Peter Fenwick, Diana Goldberg, Jie Yang, Jiawen Zhu, Katie Baker, Hayley Killingback, Paula McLean, Melanie Wood, A. Maziar Zafari, Neal Dickert, Roland Beisteiner, Fritz Sterz, Michael Berger, Celia Warlow, Siobhan Bullock, Salli Lovett, Russell Metcalfe McMillan, Karim Karabelis, Thomas Paulson, Brian Hancock, Maryam Siassakos, Jerry P. Nolan, Charlotte Jenkinson, Santhana Krishnamurthy, Anthony Hartley, Simon Chakraborty. (2014). Resuscitation. Vol. 85. No. 12. DOI: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2014.09.004
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2014.09.004