Coma

A coma – also known as a persistent vegetative state- is a very deep state of unconsciousness which will last more than six hours, and in which the person is still very much alive, with normal breathing cycles, but can’t respond to any stimuli, or his/her surrounding environment. This can usually be tested by medics putting the individual through (normally) painful and/or problematic stimulants. The patient is also unable to move, see, hear or speak. The coma takes away higher brain functions, thinking

Abstract The longest time ever recorded of someone being in a coma was done by Elaine Esposito, who was comatose for 37 years and 111 days. She died before she could wake up. People can still wake up from a coma after an exceedingly long time. Terry Wallis spent 19 years in a coma and woke up. She was able to function with a small amount of disability after the fact. Comas are a very widely known (illness). They can last from several days to weeks, in more severe cases it can last for months and

Madison Johnson Mrs. Phillips/ 7th period 10th Grade Honors World Literature 28 August 2016 Coma Recovery: Steps to Understand the Brain Annotated Bibliography University of California - Los Angeles. "Scientists use ultrasound to jump-start a man 's brain after coma: New noninvasive technique may lead to low-cost therapy for patients with severe brain injury." Science Daily. Science Daily, 24 Aug 2016. The author explains a technique called “low-intensity focused ultrasound pulsation”

this then causing the patient to become less alert (Craig, 2003). His consciousness can only be tested by external stimuli to test for the functioning of the RAS (through Auditory/Visual stimuli which in turn activate RAS). This is why the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is used as a measure a conscious state (Braine & Cook, 2017). It tests and scores the visual, verbal and motor response. The lower the GCS score the more of an altered conscious state the patient is said to have. Typically the lower scores

On February 3, 2017 at 4 p.m. surrounded by his wife and 4 sons two tests were underway at St. Mary’s hospital intensive care unit for brain death certification under patient Tommie Walker Jr. As the first doctor entered and performed the test to see if brain death was finalized another doctor needed to confirm it. Absent light reflex - cranial nerve II and III, no jaw reflex, no corneal reflex were the words that the doctors uttered, I can see from the look on my mother’s face who is a RN that its

doctor Laura, not a psychic. I 've seen people in comas for days and then I 've seen people in comas for months, I’m not sure,” the doctor said. I heard the door open and close, I assumed they both left, leaving me alone in my thoughts. They were my nurse and doctor… I wasn 't having sleep paralysis, I was in a coma. So many thoughts flooded into my mind. Where was my mom? Was she alive? Did she know where I was? Did she know that I was in coma? Then I remembered something I saw on Twitter the

contrast the two methods of assessing a patients level of consciousness. Approx 150 words Both AVPU and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) are ways of assessing a person’s level of consciousness however different methods are used to do so. AVPU, which stands for Alert, Verbal, Pain and Unresponsive, uses visual, verbal and painful stimuli’s to assess a level of consciousness [1]. Similarly the Glasgow Coma Scale uses stimuli’s to assess a person’s level of consciousness however the method is a lot more in depth

assisted dying law would not result in more people dying, but in fewer people suffering”(Selby). Euthanasia, also known as physician assisted death is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma (Nordqvist). There are many famous cases involving euthanasia. For example, on April 15, 1975, Karen Ann Quinlan lost consciousness after mixing alcohol and the drug Valium, restricting oxygen to her brain(“Karen Ann Quinlan”). “After several weeks

Defining Death Alan D. Shewmon, the professor of pediatric neurology at UCLA Medical School believes that "until the turn of the decade, most people thought that 'brain death' was a settled issue; it no longer is. An increasing number of experts have begun to re-examine critically and to reject various key underlying assumptions" (Shewmon 1998). Determination of death has obviously become more complex, and the questions of when death is final require answers. According to most recent definitions

moderate and severe. A mild patient may lose consciousness, typically for a few seconds or a few minutes. A moderate patient can lose consciousness for 1-24 hours. A severe patient can lose consciousness or be in a coma for more than 24 hours. It can also be put into subcategories coma, vegetative state, persistent vegetative state, and minimally responsive