Can a person in a coma hear what others are saying nearby?

Question

For example, if a person is dying of renal failure which is caused by cancer that renders the kidneys virtually useless and lapses into a coma in his/her deathbed and eventually dies 4-5 days afterwards, was that person ever able to heard anything said to her in the room during her last days? The patient showed very few signs of discomfort, and never opened her eyes until just before dying for a few seconds; never was able to speak (but tried to just before dying); and never moved anything other than her eyes just before death. I have heard yes, she definitely could hear; maybe she couldn't ; and it depends on the kind of medical situation. Okay, the latter sounds logical to someone who doesn't know much about such things, but does anyone here cite anything with a good source? Has anyone here known anyone who recovered from a bedridden coma and was able to remember things that we said while he/she was in the coma? Serious answers only please.

Answer 1

when somebody is apparently unconscious the very last sense to go is the ability to hear .

I once took a lady in to hospital ,who had had a massive stroke
,
it was a long journey to hospital ( 3/4 of an hour )and
i talked to her continually, as if she was conscious ( as i always did )
she was very ill and i had to maintain her airway constantly en route .
but i told her what i was doing and what was happening to her,

and also how she would feel, when she regained consciousness
and how she would slowly regain her speech and movement .
and not fear , though it would take some time and effort ..

I talked to her of my Aunty, who had a similar stroke and was slowly but surely recovering .

6 months on
i met this lady in the physiotherapy department ,
She said she did not know what i looked like or who i was,

but she clearly remembered my voice and the confidence it had given her , to carry on , when she was so afraid .;

so if you can talk to all your "unconscious relatives / patients and make sure they know, you are there for them .

Answer 2

All I can tell you is what I have seen from experience and heard in nurses' training. And that is, it is very possible for someone in a coma to hear what people are saying around them. Since a coma doesn't affect the functioning of the ears, we know that the conversation is getting inside the brain. Unless the brain is totally destroyed in some way, at some level it is still working. So there is no functional reason why at some level the person isn't hearing what is being said.

As a nurse, we often hear of patients waking up from comas and being able to describe conversations that had been going on while they were "unconscious." There are other cases where coma patients were hypnotised after they woke from the coma . While they had no conscious memories of conversations while they were unconscious, under hypnosis they could describe the conversations. So, at least subconsciously the brain was registering what was going on.

The bottom line is nurses are always taught to talk to the patient as if he/she is conscious. I think that is a good rule to go by for everyone around the patient.

Answer 3

This is controversial but, some say they have heard your conversations but nursing school teaches when you are in a coma, you are unaware of what is going on..

Finally they also teaches that hearing is your last sense to leave you...

Answer 4

i'm not a doc and dont know but i like to think they do so that maybe someone who wronged them could a least say i'm sorry. but honestly i really think they would be able to remember it too if they servive depending on how tramatized they were. cuz some people block out very tramatizing situations and they dont even know that it happened, and it takes someone hypnotizing them to remember.