Sharon's progress stuns docs

2006-01-11 15:23

Jerusalem - The pace of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recovery in hospital after a massive brain haemorrhage has stunned medics, his chief neurosurgeon said on Wednesday.

"He is a very strong person. If someone had told me this was going to happen a week ago, I wouldn't have believed it," Felix Umansky said.

The Argentine doctor said that Sharon, who is being gradually awoken from a medically-induced coma, is already moving "his four limbs" and is showing stronger responses to the lightest stimulation.

"The process is very slow and must be very well controlled. Nobody who is close to regaining consciousness likes feeling that he has a tube next to his windpipe or that he is immobilised," he said.

"This (process of awakening him) raises the blood pressure and it is important to go slowly," he said.

Umansky said that it could take months before a full assessment of the damage can be made.

"To evacuate his higher intellectual functions could take weeks or months, although other functions, such as speaking will occur earlier," he said.

Sharon, 77, was admitted to Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital last Wednesday night after suffering his second stroke in less than three weeks.

- AFP