The Difference Between A Person In Coma And A Dead Person

According to healthline

Used to Depict a Coma Patient

As a matter of fact, there are two medical terms that are frequently misused. Because some individuals don’t understand what a coma is and don’t know how to tell if someone has died or is just unconscious, we’ll examine the differences between being in a coma and being dead for the sake of education.

We all know that comas are common and that some people recover from them while others never regain consciousness after falling into one. The question is, though, have you ever wondered what the distinction between these ideas actually is? I’ll wager that you haven’t, so if you want to find out, you should read this article all the way through to its conclusion.

When Does Comatose Mean Someone Is Unconscious?

In contrast to popular belief, a person in a coma is not considered dead or even brain dead; rather, they are in a profound condition of unresponsiveness due to injury or severe disease. Patients in a coma do not respond to external stimuli, such as noise or light, and cannot be roused from their stupor by any volume of either. However, in most cases, the brain is still functioning, and the individual either regains consciousness after a period of time (usually a few days) or dies or remains in a vegetative condition. Most people in a coma don’t require life-support equipment like ventilators or machines because they continue to breathe properly despite the failure of their nervous system.

On the other hand, when all brain activity has stopped, a person is said to be dead or brain dead. Comatose patients don’t always stay that way; sometimes they progress to brain death, which is irreversible mortality. The term “brain death” has recently replaced the older term “clinical death.” A person is said to have entered the brain death stage when all brain function has ceased and he or she has grown completely cold as a result of the withdrawal of artificial life support measures. This is a stage of no return, once a person’s brain cells die, it is irrevocable, there are no prospects of survival. Such a person is gone forever.

While Vegetative state means, the person consciousness has been depressed, brain stem function no longer working and the individual can still breathe without support. A person in vegetative state can still poop, respond to loud sounds or discomfort, go through sleep-wake cycles but still can’t regain consciousness. If a person remains in vegetative state for more than a year, the person is immediately classified as someone that can’t recover again with very limited possibilities of recovery.