TIL: Brain damage

[Daniell]

One of my colonists got shot in the head, and ended up with brain damage at 2/10. This meant he was permanently unconscious. I was content to let him chill in a hospital bed until I could research a brain stimulator (modded Rimworld, obviously) and get him up and cleaning the colony.

Lo and behold, he has been in bed for 2 years, 1 quadrum, and suddenly I get a message that he's no longer incapable of walking. I check his brain--he's at 3/10 and conscious.

Brain injury recovery seems to be possible.... but extremely slow.

It may not apply to anything but severe brain injuries. My other head-injury victim, who got shot at the same time, got her brain knocked down to 6/10, and is still at 6/10. Or maybe it's just because she hasn't been lying in a Steel hospital bed (good) for two years.

[Limdood]

is he on luciferium?  luciferium can heal permanent injuries and scars (but not completely destroyed body parts) over time.

[Daniell]

Nope, no luciferium. If he were on that, he'd have died of withdrawal ages ago. Just two years of bed rest.

[crazyroosterman]

I.....hu in one of my colony's one of my colonist got brain damage from shrapnel and halved all of his health functions if that colony hadn't got broken by one my mods uninstalling it self for no reason id experiment with this my self.

[Limdood]

not terribly relevant to the original purpose of the post exploring somehow self healing braininess, but...

If you can afford luciferium, it's certainly worth giving it to brain-damaged colonists (unconscious colonists can be given luciferium through the operations menu).  It will give the colonist back FULL capability eventually...usually within a couple quadrums.  If the colonist was useful before the damage, they'll gain back full functionality and then some after it heals.

[Devon_v]

If you've messed around in Dev Mode you might have noticed that Rimworld uses Floats for a lot of its medical data, so it's entirely possible for an injury to have like a 0.000001 healing rate and only seem like it isn't healing.

[Mutineer]

Nope, no luciferium. If he were on that, he'd have died of withdrawal ages ago. Just two years of bed rest.

Actually not. If you operate him (inject luciferium), he will become conscious and will be moving. Luciferium boost conscience over bed threshold.
After taking luciferium for maybe 1-2 seasons he will be fully healed. My pawn had this condition and there was a funny story. He was walking around and suddenly i got the message he got malaria(together with half of colony) and become unconscious again. I put him in bed and treat him. In about few second he was walking again. How come? I was surprised. I look and evidently luciferium heal his infection and i had to wait again untill it's finally heal his brain.

[Daniell]

Luciferium might have worked, but I hadn't found enough of it to risk putting anybody on it. He'd have died because of withdrawal when I ran out.

Keeping him in bed until I could get a brain stimulator and make him the janitor was a compromise to avoid euthanasia.

I've never actually kept anybody in bed for two years before; this is the first time I've seen anything like it.

Devon, your float theory makes a lot of sense--it could have started out just under the threshold for consciousness and ended up just above it. I did notice he gained consciousness briefly a couple of times in the days before he finally regained it for good. And now I really can't remember whether his brain damage was 2/10 or 1/10... if it was 2/10, then I bet that's exactly what happened.

His consciousness did go up and down over the two years, because he caught sleeping sickness, malaria, and the plague (Jungle biome, of course) and occasionally got mildly malnourished when I had to recruit everybody, even the doctors. So at some point, maybe the rounding errors added up.

In other news, he now does have a brain stimulator. Even at 65% consciousness he's a surprisingly competent artist at when he's not cleaning insect guts off the floor. Burning passions are powerful things, I guess.

I hope this is a feature, not a bug. Because seriously, the idea of somebody recovering minimal consciousness after two years in a coma is something that can and does happen in real life--rarely, but it happens. The brain re-wires itself around the injury. Complete recoveries are rare, but improvements are certainly not unheard-of. Especially in strong, young people.

This guy was fifteen at the time of his injury--maybe that was a factor. The other brain injury victim, the one who stayed stable at 6/10, is about 35.

[lighthoof]

I put him in bed and treat him. In about few second he was walking again. How come? I was surprised. I look and evidently luciferium heal his infection and i had to wait again untill it's finally heal his brain.

That's not luciferium imo, sometimes good and quick treatment can push the disease's progression below diagnosable threshold

[Songleaves]

Neuroplasticity is a remarkable thing.

[asanbr]

The amount of food you wasted on him in bed for 2 years is clearly not worth it. You should just have killed him and got another janitor.
In economic terms, ofc. I also get attached to pawns sometimes.

[Daniell]

Jungle biome, year-round growing season. More than enough food. And honestly, until I got penoxycycline production up, everybody was spending time in bed eating now and then--malaria, sleeping sickness, panther bites...

[kubolek01]

Jungle biome, year-round growing season. More than enough food. And honestly, until I got penoxycycline production up, everybody was spending time in bed eating now and then--malaria, sleeping sickness, panther bites...

Meh... mods make it easier to control. Sicknesses are nothing if you have a fair doc and herbs!

[Klitri]

Even though everybody won't shush with the luciferium garbage I think this is really neat and not surprising well very surprising but not if you know what I mean.

"I hope this is a feature, not a bug. Because seriously, the idea of somebody recovering minimal consciousness after two years in a coma is something that can and does happen in real life--rarely, but it happens. The brain re-wires itself around the injury. Complete recoveries are rare, but improvements are certainly not unheard-of. Especially in strong, young people."

Thats what I was thinking too is a coma but that stuff about the brain re-wiring itself it just completely makes sense in the game.