WP: Experts Optimistic About Senator Johnson's Recovery

[DeepModem Mom]

Experts Optimistic About Senator's Recovery
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 15, 2006; Page A04

The experience of other people who have suffered bleeding from arteriovenous malformations inside the brain suggests that Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who underwent emergency surgery for that condition Wednesday night, has at least a 50-50 chance of full recovery.

The 59-year-old senator may need another operation or other procedure to completely defuse the abnormal tangle of blood vessels inside his head that he was born with. But statistics suggest that his chance of suffering another bleeding episode in the near future is less than 10 percent and that his brain function is likely to improve from now on.

"I think his prognosis for recovery is very good," said Laligam Sekhar, a neurosurgeon at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and former chairman of neurosurgery at George Washington Medical Center, where Johnson was treated. "Any disability now is going to depend on where the malformation was and what his condition was going into surgery."

Johnson's physicians provided no details on his condition. But the senator's office said he responded to his wife's voice and held her hand, and the Capitol physician, John Eisold, said he is "appropriately responsive to both word and touch" -- suggesting that he is conscious and may be able to communicate.

Many people harbor arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) unknowingly for decades. When they bleed, 10 to 15 percent of patients die within hours, 35 percent suffer permanent disability and about 50 percent recover more or less completely. The prevalence of AVMs is not known with precision, though one estimate is that about one-half of 1 percent of people have them....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121401797.html