Being 19 years behind the times in Poland.

[chequita guevara]

In many of these cases, when someone comes back like this, they don't stay awake that long. Within a few months he'll likely slip back into a coma.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Aren't these people normally very limited in mental ability after such a long time in coma?

coma's generally come from head injuries, which means from an injury of the brain

there isn't any logical reason I can think of why the coma would be a larger cause of damage than the head injury in the first place

JM

[Zkribbler]

cool story

[Ecthy]

Jon M, I could imagine that a general lack of brain activity would make your cognitive abilities deteriorate? Didn't Terry Schiavo end up with a brain that had drastically decreased in size over the time?

[Jon Miller]

yeah, but that isn't what generally happens in comas

it can happen, but it isn't the usual response

from wikipedia " It may also be deliberately induced by pharmaceutical agents in order to preserve higher brain function following another form of brain trauma."

JM

[Jon Miller]

basically, there isn't some general deterioration of a brain that naturally happens in comas that results in Schiavo like result

JM

[Ecthy]

Yeah, but 19 years without active cognitive activity can't do good. They said he had to learn to speak de nuevo, and I'm sure he lost quite some ability to reason. Maybe he can lead a normal life anyway.

[Jon Miller]

"Schiavo remained comatose for two and a half months. When she emerged from the coma, Schiavo regained a sleep-wake cycle, but did not exhibit repeatable and consistent awareness of herself or environment. While initially fed by means of a nasogastric feeding tube, she eventually received a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding tube—inserted through the abdominal wall. The parents consistently pressed for rehabilitation both before and after the malpractice settlement but were excluded from medical information and decisions.

Dr. Garcia J. DeSousa, a board-certified neurologist in St. Petersburg, Florida, cared for Schiavo during her initial admission to Humana; both he and Dr. Victor Gambone, an internist and Schiavo family physician, independently made the PVS diagnosis within approximately one year after Schiavo's cardiac arrest. Other neurologists—Drs. Jeffery M. Karp, James H. Barnhill, and Thomas H. Harrison—also examined Schiavo over the years and made the same diagnosis; they also shared a very poor opinion about her chances for recovery. Dr. Cranford testified in 2005 that nothing in the medical records suggested disagreement among Terri’s physicians about the underlying diagnosis.[11][12] The legal record, however, shows Michael's claim that Terri felt pain.[13]p.88"

Basically, Schiavo emerged from a coma rather quickly. But she was in a persistant vegetative state... which was a result of failure after the cardiac arrest

read more on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Schiavo

there is no link there between coma and brain material loss

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Yeah, but 19 years without active cognitive activity can't do good. They said he had to learn to speak de nuevo, and I'm sure he lost quite some ability to reason. Maybe he can lead a normal life anyway.

did he have a brain injury that caused it? this would cause a loss of ability due to dead neurons and the like

your original suggestion was that there was a loss of ability to be intelligent, which is a different thing then skills falling into disuse

there has been nothing I have read that has suggested this

Jon Miller
(after my dad's traumatic brain injury he was in a coma for a while, so I have read up on the subject a bit (although I did not become an expert by any means))

[LordShiva]

Doddler's back

Heresson

[aneeshm]

That woman deserves a medal.

[FrostyBoy]

It's like Time Travel!

That reminds me, there's a cool clip of a possible means to travel forward in time on Spiked Humor.

and I agree with aneeshm 100%, that's the kind of girl I'd marry.

Polish women