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ESRC Grant for Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research

Posted on 11 February 2013

Celia Kitzinger has been awarded a grant from the ESRC to fund further research on chronic disorders of consciousness.

Celia Kitzinger has been awarded a grant from the ESRC to fund further research on chronic disorders of consciousness. The grant (“Vegetative and minimally conscious states: Creating a web resource for families of severely brain injured patients”) is shared between the universities of York (Celia Kitzinger), Cardiff (Jenny Kitzinger) and Oxford (Sue Ziebland) and is funded by an ESRC Knowledge Exchange Award with matched funding from the DIPEx charity.

Increasing numbers of people are now surviving after severe brain injuries which leave them with chronic disorders of consciousness, i.e. in ‘vegetative’ or ‘minimally conscious’ states. Their families face many challenges including: complex diagnostic and prognostic information, uncertainty about the future, difficult treatment decisions, and profound moral and emotional dilemmas. This initiative builds on (and will extend) our existing database of in-depth research interviews with families of brain-injured patients in order to create support and information tools. We are video-recording interviews, extracts from which will be posted on the publicly available web-based resource: HealthTalkOnline

This work is part of a broader project addressing serious brain injury conducted by the York-Cardiff Chronic Disorders of Consciousness Research Groups at both York and Cardiff