Non-Traumatic Coma in Children- A Review

Coma is defined as the unintentional failure of the patient to open their eyes spontaneously or in response to noise and inability to open for commands or localised painful stimuli with or without the ability to express comprehensible words or language response, whereas the Non traumatic coma is without any injury to the brain, and the Glasgow coma scale below 12.

The Non traumatic coma causes due to the infections(tubercular meningitis, bacterial meningitis, encephalitis) and other metabolic conditions ,status epilepticus intracranial bleed, miscellaneous, hypoxic ischemic insults, Electrical shock, shunt dysfunction, Inborn error of metabolism.

The monitoring parameters are Heart rate, Respiratory rate and pattern, Blood pressure, Temperature, coma severity using GCS, pupillary size, extra ocular movements, corneal reflex, posture, and motor pattern. The main symptoms are ataxia or weakness, isolated cranial nerve palsy, mild alteration of tone, poor pulse volume, apnea, abnormal pupillary size and reaction, dizziness, Headache, abnormal extra ocular movements absent corneal reflex.

Management of non-traumatic coma patients at hospital includes Monitoring of Intracranial pressure, Maintenance of an adequate cerebral perfusion pressure, Management of persistent intracranial hypertension and Monitoring of Electroencephalographic Seizure activity.

Infections are the most common cause for the non-traumatic coma in several cases. The pattern of infectious caused are CNS infections > metabolic toxic exposure > encephalitis > Intoxication > hypoxic ischemic insults > Intracranial haemorrhages>miscellaneous>unknown cases. 40% of children are prone to Non traumatic coma per 10000 general population per year.