[Assessment of central nervous system functional disorders in severely burned patients by auditory evoked brain stem potentials].

The recording of brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) in severely burned patients can be used for judgement of brainstem function independent of consciousness and CNS-effective drugs. The frequency of central-nervous system complications due to burn injuries is between 7 and 30%. Using BAEP-recordings, we found objective neurophysiological parameters of central-nervous dysfunction in 12 of 25 severely burned patients (48%). Specific BAEP-parameters for burn injuries could not be detected. Specifically, very different time courses of BAEP-changes were found. In two patients, who died after severe burn injury, typical neurophysiological patterns of progressive cerebral pressure were observed. The measurement of BAEP is a useful diagnostic tool in detecting central-nervous dysfunction after burn injuries, especially for monitoring in non-cooperative patients.