17^th Annual Brain Death Congress

Brain Death and Disorders of consciousness

Brain death and disorders of consciousness such as coma, vegetative state and minimally conscious state. Coma:  A state of unconsciousness from the patient who cannot be aroused even with stimulation such a pressure on the supraorbital nerve, temporo- mandibular angle of the mandible, sternum, or nail bed. Vegetative state: This signifies an awake but unresponsive state, most of these patients were earlier comatose and a period of days or weeks emerges to an unresponsive state in which their eyelids are open, giving the appearance of wakefulness. This explains two inter-related paradoxes; the first paradox is the brain dead patient whose 'phenotype' betrays the ultimate futility and lack of sustainability of the state and the second paradox is that of patients who retain apparent higher levels of cognitive function but who may be misidentified as remaining in a vegetative state or one of the similar conditions formulated in the recently defined syndrome of cognitive motor dissociation.