There’s still a slim chance that Bobbi Kristina Brown will live — but there’s little possibility she’ll recover.
Whitney Houston’s daughter remained in a medically induced coma on Thursday — more than a month after she was discovered face down in a bathtub on Jan. 31 — but Brown’s doctors are continuing the risky strategy hoping the 22-year-old’s youth will pull her through.
“In someone young we definitely give her a chance to recover as much as possible, so it is not surprising that they’re keeping her sedated for a long time,” says Dr. Rafael Ortiz, director of the Center for Cerebrovascular Surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital.
The purpose of the medical coma is to allow Brown’s brain swelling — which resulted from Brown’s loss of oxygen — to lessen. At that point, physicians will consider pulling her out of the coma.
“That’s the only point (at which) you can make an accurate assessment,” Ortiz told the Daily News.
Doctors attempted to bring Brown out of the coma last week — a process that takes a few days — but she reportedly started going into seizures, which could cause more brain swelling, Ortiz said.
A decision to take Brown off life support is still a few weeks away, says NYU Langone Medical Center medical ethicist Dr. Art Caplan.
“After a couple months they start to think you’re not gonna come back,” he said.
Brown may regain enough bodily functions — breathing, temperature control, blinking — to be in a permanent vegetative state, he said. Unless Brown has given advance instructions in the event of her incapacitation, there will likely be a family dispute on how to move forward.
The extent of her injury — and how long her brain was deprived of oxygen — is still unknown. But being underwater for more than a few minutes is very dangerous.
“Brain tissue dies really quickly without oxygen and the damage is irreversible,” Caplan said.
