when a person is in a coma, are they aware of whats going on around them?

Question

Like, can they conciously decern whats going on? Such as, when I hear somone screaming, I make the concsious determination that someone is being hurt, and same thing when I hear laughter, ect ect. So when someon is in a coma, are they aware of whats going on, and do they feel emotion?

Answer 1

No idea.

Answer 2

There are many types and causes of coma. Depending onthe depth of coma the awearness lessens as depth greatens.

Deep coma and sleepless coma are combined to no changes in cerebral function durin stimulli and this is a strong evidence of no awareness whatsoever.

Other types of coma are yet to be revealed in the aspect of awareness. We are in fact told to be carefull of what we say around patients in a coma but with otherwise healthy brains, not because they can hear or see us, but because we expect them to awake at some point. Patiens without any cortex left, well, I am afraid they do not hear anything. Or feel for that matter, they are brain dead. This is an irreversible comma.

Be very carefull, there are 2 conditions that require special attention.

A) All cases reported when a patient wakes up saying he/she remebers conversations over his/her head, were either dreams, memories from the docs before they went "deep" or, finally, wrongly diagnosed commas... A patient in a true deep comma CANNOT hear or see anything. Or feel. They may be dreaming though there is some dispute over that.

B) There is a syndrome called the locked-in-syndrome, horrible to the patient and the doctor when one finds out. The patiens apears to be in a comma clinically since there is no response, not even to painfull stimuli. The reason for that though is not unawareness but complete sensual and motor paralysis- the patient hears (may even see when we open their eyes to check pupils) but CANNOT react. Unfortunatelly the diagnosis is very hard and requires a well informed doc. Fortunatelly it is extreamly rare.

That's about all a non MD needs to know.

Yes, keep on talking to your loved ones in a comma. It is mostly done for you, not for them. Do it. Nothing to be ashamed of. We even talk to them sometimes.

Answer 3

They tell you to talk to a person in a coma, & be aware of what you say around them, as there is anecdotal evidence that they can be aware of their surroundings.

There's no evidence that this is true, and I'm sure it would also depend on the type of coma, but there are cases of people who have come out of a coma & remembered conversations they heard while under.

Answer 4

this isa much debated question. unless the non existant brain activity is the result of deprivation oxygen (lasting several minutes) I believe that people in a coma can hear and think and feel emotion, the brain impulses are just not there to follow through to the body.

Answer 5

Some times yes and some times no