In medicine Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness, a coma (from the Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of κῶμα koma, meaning deep sleep) is a profound state of unconsciousness Unconsciousness, more appropriately referred to as loss of consciousness or lack of consciousness, is a dramatic alteration of mental state that involves complete or near-complete lack of responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli. Being in a comatose state or coma is an illustration of unconsciousness. Fainting due to a drop in. A person in a coma cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to pain, light or sound, does not have sleep-wake cycles A circadian rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living entities, including plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria . The term "circadian", coined by Franz Halberg, comes from the Latin circa, "around," and diem or dies, "day", meaning literally ", and does not take voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma can be described as comatose.
Coma may result from a variety of conditions, including intoxication Intoxication is the state of being affected by one or more psychoactive drugs. It can also refer to the effects caused by the ingestion of poison or by the overconsumption of normally harmless substances, metabolic Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in living organisms to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories. Catabolism breaks down organic matter, for example to harvest energy in cellular abnormalities, central nervous system diseases, acute neurologic injuries such as stroke A stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function(s) due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia (lack of glucose & oxygen supply) caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage. As a result, the affected area of the brain is unable to function, leading to inability to move one or more, and hypoxia Hypoxia is a pathological condition in which the body as a whole or a region of the body (tissue hypoxia) is deprived of adequate oxygen supply. Variations in arterial oxygen concentrations can be part of the normal physiology, for example, during strenuous physical exercise. A mismatch between oxygen supply and its demand at the cellular level. A coma may also result from head trauma Head injury refers to trauma to the head. This may or may not include injury to the brain. However, the terms traumatic brain injury and head injury are often used interchangeably in the medical literature caused by mechanisms such as falls or car accidents A traffic collision is when a road vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, or geographical or architectural obstacle. Traffic collisions can result in injury, property damage, and death. It may also be deliberately induced A barbiturate-induced coma, or barb coma, is a temporary coma brought on by a controlled dose of a barbiturate drug, usually pentobarbital or thiopental. Barbiturate comas are used to protect the brain during major neurosurgery, and as a last line of treatment in certain cases of status epilepticus that have not responded to other treatments by pharmaceutical agents in order to preserve higher brain function following another form of brain trauma, or to save the patient from extreme pain during healing of injuries or diseases. The underlying cause of coma is bilateral damage to the Reticular formation The reticular formation is a part of the brain that is involved in actions such as awaking/sleeping cycle, and filtering incoming stimuli to discriminate irrelevant background stimuli. It is essential for governing some of the basic functions of higher organisms, and is one of the phylogenetically oldest portions of the brain of the midbrain In biological anatomy, the mesencephalon comprises the tectum (or corpora quadrigemini), tegmentum, the ventricular mesocoelia (or "iter"), and the cerebral peduncles, as well as several nuclei and fasciculi. Caudally the mesencephalon adjoins the pons (metencephalon) and rostrally it adjoins the diencephalon (Thalamus, hypothalamus, et, which is important in regulating sleep.[1]
If the cause of coma is not clear, various investigations (blood tests A blood test is a laboratory analysis performed on a blood sample that is usually extracted from a vein in the arm using a needle, or via fingerprick, medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process used to create images of the human body for clinical purposes (medical procedures seeking to reveal, diagnose or examine disease) or medical science (including the study of normal anatomy and physiology)) may be performed to establish the cause and identify reversible causes. Coma usually necessitates admission to a hospital A hospital is an institution for health care providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment, and often, but not always providing for longer-term patient stays and often the intensive care unit An intensive care unit , critical care unit (CCU), intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) is a specialized department used in many countries' hospitals that provides intensive care medicine. Many hospitals also have designated intensive care areas for certain specialities of medicine, as dictated by the needs and available.
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Chicago Tribune
A 17-year-old Wisconsin girl is in a coma after she was thrown from a speeding snowmobile and struck her head. Town of Mukwonago police say the teen from ...
Vernon teen in coma after snowmobile accident WKOW-TV.com
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Central surface brightness of galaxies and stars located within 1 sq degree of the Coma cluster Stars are denoted by red dots outlined by two lines representing the zone of stars High
