Comatose patients do not seem to hear or respond. Speaking may not affect their clinical outcome; time spent with them takes time away from other, more "viable" patients. Comatose patients may, however, hear; many have normal brain-stem auditory evoked responses and normal physiologic responses to auditory stimuli.
Can Your Loved One Hear You? During a coma, the individual is unconscious, meaning they are unable to respond to any sounds. However, the brain may still be able to pick up on sounds from loved ones. In fact, some studies suggest talking and touching a loved one while they are in a coma may help them recover.
As many as 15 to 20 percent of patients who appear to be in a coma or other unresponsive state show these inner signs of awareness when evaluated with advanced brain-imaging methods or sophisticated monitoring of electrical activity.
A person may appear fine, but will not able to speak or respond to commands. Spontaneous movements may occur, and the eyes may open in response to external stimuli. Individuals may even occasionally grimace, cry, or laugh.
The study estimates that anywhere between 15% and 20% of coma patients may have some internal awareness of what's going on around them even if they can't physically react. Their findings have major implications for the way the medical community views and treats coma patients.
Some examples of early responses to watch for are: Localized response: These are appropriate movements by the patient in response to sound, touch, or sight. Turning toward a sound, pulling away from something uncomfortable, or following movement with the eyes are examples.
Severe brain injury is usually defined as being a condition where the patient has been in an unconscious state for 6 hours or more, or a post-traumatic amnesia of 24 hours or more. These patients are likely to be hospitalised and receive rehabilitation once the acute phase has passed.
Annie Shapiro (1913–2003) was a Canadian apron shop owner who was in a coma for 29 years because of a massive stroke and suddenly awakened in 1992. Apart from the patients in the true story Awakenings, Shapiro was the longest a person has been in a coma like state and woken up.
Elaine Esposito (December 3, 1934 – November 25, 1978) held the record for the longest period of time in a coma according to Guinness World Records, having lost consciousness in 1941 and eventually dying in that condition more than 37 years later.
Severe injuries can cause permanent unconsciousness. Of people with severe injuries, 60% to 80% survive. Many of those who survive are completely unconscious for some period.
Some people feel they can remember events that happened around them while they were in a coma, while others don't.
People who do wake up from a coma usually come round gradually. They may be very agitated and confused to begin with. Some people will make a full recovery and be completely unaffected by the coma. Others will have disabilities caused by the damage to their brain.
"Being in a coma is like a magnified and intense version of our own dreams," she said. "Everything that happens in the real world, you hear, you're aware of, you kind of know what's going on, but it goes through this weird filter thing in your brain."
Coma is a state of consciousness that is similar to deep sleep, except no amount of external stimuli (such as sounds or sensations) can prompt the brain to become awake and alert. A person in a coma can't even respond to pain.
Coma patients might feel pleasure and pain like the rest of us.
In a coma, a patient is alive and there is some brain activity. Depending on the severity of the injury, recovery time varies and comas can be temporary or permanent. Patients in a coma might have brain stem responses, spontaneous breathing and/or non-purposeful motor responses.
Someone in a coma needs intensive care in hospital. They may need help with breathing, they will be fed through a tube and they will receive blood and fluids through a drip inserted into the vein.
Coma is a state of prolonged loss of consciousness. It can have a variety of causes, including traumatic head injury, stroke, brain tumor, or drug or alcohol intoxication. A coma may even be caused by an underlying illness, such as diabetes or an infection. Coma is a medical emergency.
People in a vegetative state can open their eyes, but they cannot speak or do things that require thought or conscious intention, and they have no awareness of themselves or their environment.
Vegetative state (also known as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome) is when a person is awake, but shows no signs of awareness. This is different to a coma, in which the patient is completely unconscious.
Nearly every coma patient who reaches the state of post-traumatic amnesia will make a functional recovery. In fact, patients who transition from a coma to a minimally conscious state within 8 weeks are most likely to transition to post-traumatic amnesia and regain higher functions.
Recovery. Most of the people who spoke to us had relatives who remained in a vegetative or minimally conscious state (or died without ever regaining full consciousness). In some cases, though, the patient regained full consciousness.