Coma.

NUTLEY BOY

Medically, what is a coma?

What is a medically induced coma and why is it's purpose ?

NUTLEY BOY

Correction - what is it's purpose ?

Vorsprung

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

Correction - what is it's purpose ?

It's basically a state of sedation to allow recovery from a procedure or illness, or to allow a procedure or intervention.

Assuming you're talking about the Schumacher case, he's said to have been fairly agitated and then dropped his level of consciousness after he hit his head, which are common symptoms of subdural haemorrhages in particular. Having hit his head and come in agitated, he would need a head CT to out rule a brain haemorrhage which requires him to stay still for a good 1-2 mins, not easy when you're not co-operating. So sedating someone (and in a case like that, Intubating them as well) would be done to facilitate the scan. As well as that, if someone drops their level of consciousness, you need to protect their airway, and again that's done by sedating and Intubating.

In his case, having had the haematoma evacuation he'd have gone back to ICU where the sedation would be turned down each day to allow a check of his response to commands and other tests. If the responses aren't satisfactory, the sedation is turned back on until the next day.

NUTLEY BOY

Most interesting. Thanks.