Cor Vasa 2025, 67(3):331-335 | DOI: 10.33678/cor.2025.031
Prevalence of Near-Death Experiences (NDE) in Patients with Refractory Cardiac Arrest Treated with Conventional and Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
- a Kardiologie Kovář s.r.o., Prague 12, the Czech Republic
- b 2nd Department of Internal Medicine, 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and General University Hospital in Prague, Prague, the Czech Republic
- c Ministry of Health, Prague, the Czech Republic
Objective: Near-death experiences (NDE) have not yet been studied in patients with refractory cardiac arrest treated with extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR). The aim of this pilot project was to determine the prevalence of NDEs in patients from the randomized Prague OHCA study with refractory cardiac arrest and to analyze differences between patients resuscitated with standard cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and those resuscitated using the ECPR method.
Methods: NDEs were analyzed using a standardized and internationally validated questionnaire among long-term survivors of the randomized Prague OHCA study. The prevalence of NDEs was compared between patients treated with standard CPR and those resuscitated with the ECPR method.
Results: The questionnaire was completed by 44 out of 60 patients who were followed up long-term after the Prague OHCA study (median age: 57.5 years, 83% male, average CPR duration: 37.5 minutes), including 12 patients treated with ECPR (average cardiac arrest duration: 54 minutes). At least one symptom of NDE was experienced by 15/44 patients (34.1%), including 10/32 (31.3%) in the standard CPR group and 5/12 (41.6%) in the ECPR group (p = 0.52). Criteria for a complete NDE (score ≥28 on the NDE questionnaire) were met by 9/44 patients (20.5%), including 6/32 (18.8%) in the standard CPR group and 3/12 (25%) in the ECPR group (p = 0.65).
Conclusion: The prevalence of NDEs in our cohort of patients with refractory cardiac arrest corresponds to the prevalence reported in previous studies that analyzed patients treated with standard CPR and shorter durations of cardiac arrest. The numerically higher occurrence of NDEs in patients treated with the ECPR strategy is hypothesis-generating but did not reach statistical significance. Further conclusions require analysis in larger patient cohorts.
Keywords: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, Near-death experience,
Received: December 1, 2024; Revised: February 5, 2025; Accepted: February 28, 2025; Prepublished online: June 2, 2012; Published: June 20, 2025 Show citation
ACS | AIP | APA | ASA | Harvard | Chicago | Chicago Notes | IEEE | ISO690 | MLA | NLM | Turabian | Vancouver |
References
- Parnia S, Post S, Matthew T, et al. Guidelines and Standards for the study of death and recalled experiences of death - a multidisciplinary consensus statement and proposed future directions. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2022;1511:5-21.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Lommel PV, Wees RV, Meyers V et al. Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet 2001;358:2039-2045.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Parnia S, Spearpoint K, Fenwick PB. Near death experiences, cognitive function and psychological outcomes of surviving cardiac arrest. Resuscitation 2007;74:215-221.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Parnia S, Shirazi TK, Jignesh P, et al. AWAreness during REsuscitation - II: A multi-center study of consciousness and awareness in cardiac arrest. Resuscitation 2023;191:109903.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Greyson B. After - A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experience Reveal About Life and Beyond. Penquin Random House UK, 2022.
- Lommel P. Consciousness beyond life. The Science of the Near- -Death Experience. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2010.
- Belohlavek J, Smalcova J, Rob D, et al. Effect of Intra-arrest Transport, Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, and Immediate Invasive Assesment and Treatment on Functional Neurologic Outcome in Refractory Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA 2022;327:737-747.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Martial C, Simon J, Puttaert N, et al. The Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale: Development and psychometric validation. Conscious Cogn 2020;86:103049.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Greyson B. The Near-Death Experience Scale - Construction, Reliability and Validity. J Nerv Ment Dis 1983;171:369-375.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Safar P, Bleyaert A, Nemoto EM, et al. Cerebral Resuscitation after Global Ischemia-anoxia. Crit Care Med 1978;6:215-227.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Martial CH, Cassol H, Laureys S, et al. Near-Death Experience as a Probe to Explore (Disconnected) Consciousness. Trends Cogn Sci 2020;24:173-183.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Hashemi A, Oroojan AA, Maryam R, et al. Explanation of near-death experiences: a systematic analysis of case reports and qualitative research. Front Psychol 2023;14:1048929.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- West RL, Otto Q, Drennan IR, et al. CPR-related cognitive aktivity, consciousness, awareness and recall, and its management: A scoping review. Resusc Plus 2022:10:100241.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Kondziella D. The neurology of Death and the Dying Brain: A Pictorial Essay. Front Neurol 2020;11:736.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Vicente R, Rizzuto M, Sarica C, et al. Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain. Front Aging Neurosci 2022;14:813531.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Long J, Woollacott M. Long-term transformational effects of near-death experiences. Explore (NY) 2024;20:103030.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Woollacott M. Near-death experience: memory recovery during hypnosis. Explore (NY) 2024;20:103036.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- King RA. Suicide Folowing a Near-Death Experience. Crisis 2024;45:348-354.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Rousseau AF, Dams L, Massart Q, et al. Incidence of near-death experiences in patients surviving a prolonged critical illness and their long-term impact: a prospective observational study. Crit Care 2023;27:76.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Bicego A, Cassol H, Simon J, et al. Personality traits and pattern of beliefs of near-death(-like) experiencers. Front Hum Neurosci 2023;17:1124739.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Cassol H, Martial C, Annen J, et al. A systematic analysis of distressing near-death experience accounts. Memory 2019;27:1122-1129.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Martial CH, Gosseries O, Cassol H, et al. Studying death and near-death experiences requires neuroscientific expertise. Ann N Y Sci 2022;1517:11-14.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
- Romand R, Ehret G. Neuro-functional modeling of near-death experiences in contexts of altered states of consciousness. Front Psychol 2023;13:846159.
Go to original source...
Go to PubMed...
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.