You searched for: “coma
coma (s) (KOH mah) (noun), comas (pl)
1. A condition of deep, often prolonged unconsciousness, usually the result of an injury, a disease, or a poison, in which a person is incapable of sensing or responding to external stimuli and internal needs: Jeremy was at the hospital in a state of deep and prolonged coma as a result of the injury he suffered in the car accident.
2. A prolonged situation of a deep sleep marked by the absence of normal eye movements and a lack of responses even to painful stimuli and the inability to speak: It is believed that more than 50% of comas are caused by trauma to the head or to circulatory accidents in the brain because of hypertension, arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, tumor, abscess formation, or insufficient blood flow to the brain.
3. Etymology: from Greek koma; genitive form, komatos, "deep sleep, lethargy"; which is probably related to kamnein, "to toil, to be sick" or "to be worn out, to suffer".

It may also be indirectly related to koimetr-, "sleeping".

An Extensive Explanation about Comas

As is often stated, a coma is a condition of unconsciousness and a lack of normal responses which is distinguishable from sleep in that the person does not respond to stimulants, such as shouting, shaking, or pinching, nor to his or her inner needs, such as emptying the bladder of urine.

A severe injury can cause immediate unconsciousness, which may last for only a few seconds or it may continue for weeks. When unconsciousness persists over a longer period, a person is commonly said to be "in a coma".

Comas are caused by disturbances or damages to areas of the brain involved in conscious activity or the maintenance of consciousness, especially in parts of the cerebrum (the main mass of the brain), the upper parts of the brain stem, and the central regions of the brain.

The damage may be the result of a head injury, or of an abnormality, such as a brain tumor, brain abscess, or intracerebral hemorrhage, all of which can be determined by brain imaging techniques.

Quite often, comas have been a result of buildups of poisonous substances which intoxicate brain tissues that are caused by drug overdoses, advanced liver or kidney diseases, acute alcoholic intoxications, or in uncontrolled diabetes mellitus (a chronic condition associated with abnormally high levels of sugar [glucose] in the blood and urine), or there may have been impairments of blood flow to some brain areas that lead to cerebral hypoxia (a lack of oxygen).

Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and meningitis (inflammation of the brain's protective coverings) can also cause comas.

Various depths of coma are recognized

In less severe forms, a person may respond to stimulation by saying a few words or perhaps by moving an arm or fingers.

In severe cases, the person fails to respond in this way to repeated vigorous stimuli; however, even deeply comatose patients may show some automatic responses, such as continuing to breathe unaided, may cough, yawn, blink, and show roving eye movements, indicating that the lower brain stem, which controls these responses, is still functioning to some degree.

Variations can be recorded by systems that classify the coma depending on the person's verbal behavior, the movements he or she makes, and the condition of the eyes (whether they are open, closed, or looking around).

—Essentially compiled from information located in
The American Medical Association Home Medical Encyclopedia;
Medical Editor, Charles B. Clayman, MD; Random House, Inc.;
New York; 1989; page 294.
A prolonged and deep unconscoucioness.
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A condition of insensibility caused by an accident.
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This entry is located in the following unit: coma-, -coma (page 1)
coma, comma
coma (KOH muh) (noun)
A state of deep unconsciousness typically caused by an accident or an illness: Lorene was found in a coma after the skiing accident.

A traumatic brain injury is the most frequent cause of a coma.

The doctors induced a coma in the patient to allow his body to recover from the severe accident.

comma (KAHM uh) (noun)
A punctuation mark in a sentence typically used to separate parts of a sentence or a list within a sentence: The editor suggested the use of a comma to highlight the list of words, for example: cat, dog, bird, and fish.

The famous author almost fell into a coma when she discovered that her editor inserted a comma in her essay without asking her permission, thus changing the entire meaning of the piece.

(Greek: from Modern Latin which came from Greek koma, komatos, "deep sleep")
Word Entries containing the term: “coma
alcoholic coma (s) (noun), alcoholic comas (pl)
A sleep-like condition which is caused by drinking alcohol which is in the blood and marked by fast, diminished breathing, with a faster beating heart.
irreversible coma (s) (noun), irreversible comas (pl)
A medical term for brain death in which there is no response to stimuli, no spontaneous breathing or movement, and a flat EEG (electroencephalogram) tracing involving a procedure in which the brain's electrical activity is recorded as wave patterns and printed on paper or recorded in a computer.
partial coma (s) (noun), partial comas (pl)
A mild unconsciousness from which a patient can be aroused: "A partial coma allows a person to wake up and to be conscious as opposed to a full coma."
persistent vegetative state, persistent vegetative coma (s) (noun); persistent vegetative states, persistent vegetative comas (pl)
A type of coma in which the patient shows alternating sleep and wake cycles: "As a result of a severe damage to certain areas of the brain, the person is unconscious when he or she is in the persistent vegetative coma, even when that patient appears to be awake."
Word Entries at Get Words: “coma
coma
A punctuation mark.
This entry is located in the following unit: Medical Terms from a Different Perspective (page 1)