{"id":21498,"date":"2014-04-05T08:12:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T12:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=21498"},"modified":"2014-04-05T08:12:14","modified_gmt":"2014-04-05T12:12:14","slug":"doctors-cautious-after-schumacher-awakening-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/doctors-cautious-after-schumacher-awakening-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors &#8216;cautious&#8217; after Schumacher awakening news"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A wave of relief spread through the Bahrain paddock on Friday, as news broke that F1 legend Michael Schumacher has shown &#8220;moments of consciousness&#8221; this week after months in a coma.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignright\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Michael-Schumacher-1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2012-rif-images\/f1-12-drivers\/Michael-Schumacher-1.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>The brief statement made by the great German&#8217;s manager Sabine Kehm, however, refused to divulge the &#8220;details&#8221; of the development out of respect for the family and to protect the medical team&#8217;s &#8220;calmness&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Respected doctors, however, were quick to add some of their insights to the news.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Alain Simon, the medical consultant for the French sports daily L&#8217;Equipe, says the latest Schumacher statement is &#8220;difficult to interpret&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It could mean he opens and closes his eyes when he is asked,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People who are in this phase are not speaking and it could be months like this,&#8221; Simon explained, &#8220;but perhaps these moments are a sign of hope.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Simon said the development in Schumacher&#8217;s condition could actually be very timely.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In a head trauma with loss of consciousness,&#8221; he said, &#8220;beyond three months is a long-term coma with consequences.\u00a0 With less than three months there may be no consequences.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Alain Ducardonnet, the medical consultant for France&#8217;s BFMTV, agrees that the statement issued by the Schumacher camp on Friday is &#8220;good news&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Previously there had been nothing in particular,&#8221; he said.\u00a0 &#8220;It was attempted to wake him but obviously he did not.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But &#8216;moments of consciousness and awakening&#8217; can mean everything and it can mean nothing.\u00a0 These are generic words.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Perhaps he is responding to simple commands: open your eyes, move your hand, perhaps the skin was clamped to see if he feels pain.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are the first things we do when we assess consciousness,&#8221; Dr Ducardonnet added.<\/p>\n<p>Yet another doctor, the French neurosurgeon Philippe Decq, warned: &#8220;We must be extremely cautious.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Signs of awakening is probably the observation of eye movements, followed by eye-contact.\u00a0 This is encouraging and I am happy to hear that but we must be extremely careful.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The lesions are obviously extremely serious.\u00a0 Anything can happen,&#8221; Dr Decq warned.\u00a0 &#8220;You are never unscathed after a trauma of this severity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Schumacher&#8217;s former manager Willi Weber, however, spoke for the world of F1 when he said on Friday: &#8220;Thank god.\u00a0 For me, that&#8217;s the best news of the year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bild newspaper reported that Schumacher has been moved within the Grenoble hospital to an intensive care area for patients requiring less constant supervision.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A wave of relief spread through the Bahrain paddock on Friday, as news broke that F1 legend Michael Schumacher has shown &#8220;moments of consciousness&#8221; this week after months in a coma. The brief statement made by the great German&#8217;s manager Sabine Kehm, however, refused to divulge the &#8220;details&#8221; of the development out of respect for &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,92,4737,250,334],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21499,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21498\/revisions\/21499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}