Most patients who are in a coma are not able to have any control over their bowel movements. In such a case, a catheter is used which allows the patient to pass urine or stool and makes it easier for the home nurse to clean away the same.
Skin breakdown and ulcers occur commonly, since the person is unable to move and is incontinent, with no ability to control passage of urine or stool.
The possible complications of a coma relate to the following: inability to respond to body stimuli, causing incontinence of the bladder and bowel. inability to move, which may result in bedsores, or pressure ulcers.
Because patients who are in a coma can't urinate on their own, they will have a rubber tube called a catheter inserted directly into their bladder to remove the urine.
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 patients might feel pleasure and pain like the rest of us.
Most people do come out of a coma
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.
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.
If your family member is comatose, a mouth sponge, kind of like a little chunk of sponge on a stick, can be used to swab a bacteria killing solution called Peridex on the teeth a couple of times a day. Even a very small amount of this product will do quite a bit to reduce the effect of the comatose period on the teeth.
They require bathing, feeding, and toilet care, says Daiwai Olson, an intensive care nurse with more than 30 years of experience with comatose patients. Bathing usually involves sponge baths. Feeding can be continuous or periodic, but often takes place via a tube.
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.
Being comatose is being in a coma, unconscious and unable to communicate, often for long periods of time. A bad illness or unexpected accident or injury — especially to the head — can make you comatose and trapped inside a body that isn't working.
Combine this with the reclining position of comatose patients, the fact that normal digestive processes are slowed in the unconscious and the danger that feedings divorced from hunger signals may exceed the gastric capacity.
Closed eyes. Depressed brainstem reflexes, such as pupils not responding to light. No responses of limbs except for reflex movements. No response to painful stimuli except for reflex movements.
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.
The person looks like they're asleep. No amount of sensory stimulation can wake them up. They may be breathing unusually. They may be holding their body in an unusual posture.
A: Many people who have woken up from comas have reported having dreams in which they saw something from the outer world. Others have had dreams that seemed to stretch on and on. A person's ability to dream is most likely determined by the underlying medical condition that put them in a coma.
May react to a loud sound with a startle. May smile or cry or make facial expressions. Might briefly move eyes toward people or objects. Sleep-wake cycle with periods of eye-opening/closing.
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.
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.
On TV, it seems like someone in a coma wakes up right away, looks around, and is able to think and talk normally. But in real life, this rarely happens. When coming out of a coma, a person probably will be confused and only slowly respond to what's going on.
On Aug. 6, 1941, 6-year-old Elaine Esposito went to the hospital for a routine appendectomy. She went under general anesthetic and never came out. Dubbed the "sleeping beauty," Esposito stayed in a coma for 37 years and 111 days before succumbing in 1978 — the longest-ever coma, according to Guinness World Records.
“You pull the plug when the person has no brain waves, and no hope of quality of life,” Braverman said. But a problem can arise if the parties caring for the patient disagree on the decision to terminate life support.
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.
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.