Between life and death .. What does one feel when in a coma?

Scientists have been trying for years to find out how a person feels when he falls into a coma after an accident, making him between life and death.

In the meantime, scientists have been trying for years to find out what a person feels when they occur in such a situation, and how to help, especially since the task of communicating consciously with them is almost impossible.

In this report, published in the Russian newspaper "Ergonomy e Facty", writer, Yulia Elena, talked about the things that the patient feels when he is in a coma.

Dead or alive?
The writer pointed out that about 230 thousand people a year enter Europe in a coma, about 30 thousand of them remain in that situation for a long time, and sometimes associated with this situation throughout their lives.

In fact, the number is alarming and is increasing year after year due to some medical experiments. Overall, the number of those infected increased in the 20th century when two innovations invented by scientists were tested: a defibrillator, which is used to treat heart disorders, and an artificial respirator that can breathe instead of the patient.

On December 19, 1999, 26-year-old Canadian student Scott Rutley collided with a police car chasing criminals at a crossroads. Rutley suffered brain damage and went into a deep coma for nearly 12 years, which ended with his death due to an infection, even though his parents devoted their lives to caring for him, reading books for him and running television in his room.

Before his death, Rutley's parents noticed that their son moved his fingers when putting his favorite songs, and tried to convince doctors to do so. As a result, hospital staff decided to turn to a neurobiologist who runs the brain and intestinal trauma laboratory at the University of Western Ontario, Adrian Owen.

Despite the uncertainties in Owen's mind, he agreed to verify the patient's brain function using functional magnetic resonance imaging, and scientists for the first time managed to establish real contact with someone trapped in his body, but at the same time maintain his mental abilities.

Does he feel pain?
"For years I have dealt with patients in the gray state, that is, between life and death," Owen said. "So she reluctantly agreed to this experience and frustrated his relatives, who were sure that the patient showed signs of life, During many times, in Rutley's case, I felt a kind of different responsibility, especially since his parents had not lost hope for many years, creating all possible conditions in order to bring him back to this life. "

During Rutley's experiment to see if he was really conscious, he was asked to imagine himself playing tennis and some other things, to show scientists that Rutley's brain was responding to them.

Feeling thirsty
A 26-year-old swallow teacher, Kate Bainbridge, went into a coma due to an inflammation of the brain caused by a virus, and doctors performed positron emission tomography several times.In the experiment, they found that Kate was interacting with people's faces.

This was an astounding achievement for science, especially since before this experiment scientists considered patients to be in a hopeless state. Often, they did not even try to treat them. In contrast, computed tomography data prompted doctors to resume treatment.

After six months of treatment, Bainbridge recovered, telling doctors what she felt during that time, as she turned out to be very thirsty and could not ask for water.

Bainbridge was also in a state of unusual fear because doctors and nurses performed many medical operations on her body without communicating with her.In addition, Bainbridge admitted that she attempted suicide by holding her breath, but she did not succeed.

In conclusion, the author noted that from the standpoint of pathophysiology, any coma ends no later than four weeks after its onset (if the patient does not die).

The plant status is permanent if it lasts from three months to a year, and the diagnosis of each patient depends on some factors, the most important nature of the damage received by the case, according to the director of the Moscow Center for Neurology, academic Mikhail Beradov.