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.
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.
Even though those in a persistent vegetative state lose their higher brain functions, other key functions such as breathing and circulation remain relatively intact. Spontaneous movements may occur, and the eyes may open in response to external stimuli. Individuals may even occasionally grimace, cry, or laugh.
Patients in a coma appear unconscious. They do not respond to touch, sound or pain, and cannot be awakened. Their brains often show no signs of the normal sleep-wakefulness cycle, which means they are unlikely to be dreaming.
Typically, a coma does not last more than a few days or couple of weeks. In some rare cases, a person might stay in a coma for several weeks, months or even years. Depending on what caused the person to go into a coma, some patients are able to return to their normal lives after leaving the hospital.
A coma doesn't usually last longer than several weeks. People who are unconscious for a longer time might transition to a lasting vegetative state, known as a persistent vegetative state, or brain death.
The patient will be confused about where he or she is and what has happened. The patient will have difficulty with memory and behavior. The patient's confusion may lead to yelling, swearing, biting, or striking out.
Depth of coma
Those who show no motor response have a 3% chance of making a good recovery whereas those who show flexion have a better than 15% chance.
Usually, coma patients have their eyes closed and cannot see what happens around them. But their ears keep receiving sounds from the environment. In some cases, the brains of coma patients can process sounds, for example the voice of someone speaking to them [2].
People in a coma are completely unresponsive. They do not move, do not react to light or sound and cannot feel pain. Their eyes are closed. The brain responds to extreme trauma by effectively 'shutting down'.
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.
Someone in a coma will also have very reduced basic reflexes such as coughing and swallowing. They may be able to breathe on their own, although some people require a machine to help them breathe. Over time, the person may start to gradually regain consciousness and become more aware.
Coma has three possible outcomes: progression to brain death, recovery of consciousness, or evolution to a state of chronically depressed consciousness, such as a vegetative state. Patients in comas are not considered for organ, eye, or tissue donation.
Before entering a coma, a person with worsening low blood sugar, known as diabetic shock, or excessively high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood, called hypercapnia, may first experience headaches, irritability, and slurred speech.
Usually, a coma does not last more than a few weeks. Sometimes, however, a person stays in a coma for a long time — even years — and will be able to do very little except breathe on his or her own. Most people do come out of comas. Some of them are able to return to the normal lives they had before they got sick.
In the vernacular of the house officer, pulling the plug means discontinuing life support in a badly damaged patient whose survival is highly unlikely.
Fainting is a brief form of unconsciousness. Coma is a deep, prolonged state of unconsciousness. General anesthesia is a controlled period of unconsciousness.
What is a coma? A coma, sometimes also called persistent vegetative state, is a profound or deep state of unconsciousness. Persistent vegetative state is not brain-death. An individual in a state of coma is alive but unable to move or respond to his or her environment.
If a patient is comatose for several weeks, which rarely happens, he or she is considered to be in a persistent vegetative state, which can become permanent. Patients may remain in this state for decades if all medical complications are treated aggressively.
An unexpected discovery made by an international team, examining the results of an EEG on an elderly patient, who died suddenly of a heart attack while the test was in progress.
A case of pituitary coma with continuing menstruation is presented. This association is extremely rare, but a history of recent menstrual periods does not exclude advanced hypopituitarism from the differential diagnosis of severe hyponatraemia.
People in a coma will not age like conscious people living life. Muscles weaken & emaciate. The damaged part of the brain might deteriorate as a result of inflammation to the area.
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.
Place objects in the person's hands. Use objects with pleasant tactile sensations and different textures such as soft toys, silk scarves or books. Put a bunch of flowers in the person's room or spray their favourite perfume.
Post-traumatic amnesia typically occurs after a survivor wakes up from a coma, a period of unconsciousness. During this time the survivor may not be able to recall certain memories. This can last from a few minutes to a couple weeks, depending on the severity of the brain injury.