Both in movies and in real life, after someone has a life threatening injury or illness it isn’t uncommon for doctors/medical professional to induce a coma to the patient.
I understand that while in a comatose state, your body consumes resources slower and it would basically allow doctors time to operate and repair whatever is ailing the body.
But if your body wanted to go into a comatose state, wouldn’t it do it on its own as a defense mechanism to keep you alive? When is there a situation to induce one on a patient, even if the patients body is not doing it as protection itself?
In: Biology
>But if your body wanted to go into a comatose state, wouldn’t it do it on its own as a defense mechanism to keep you alive?
Our bodies’ reactions to medical problems evolved when we lived in hunter-gatherer tribes on the savannah. They evolved in a way to give us the best possible chance of passing on our genes under those circumstances. Today, we don’t live in that environment.
>When is there a situation to induce one on a patient, even if the patients body is not doing it as protection itself?
I am not a medical doctor, so I can’t answer in specifics. But in general, I can imagine that being comatose in a modern hospital bed is much safer than being comatose anywhere in the stone age. Evolution tuned us to wake up more readily than is now ideal.
My cousin was viciously attacked. Hammer to the head.
Her brain was damaged. They put her in a coma for a few reasons, but one was because they needed her body to rest. She had to undergo several surgeries. The brain surgery was delicate, to say the least. They needed her body to not confuse and exhaust itself, trying to do too much.
They let her wake up a few weeks later. She still had to relearn how to walk, etc. I think the coma gave her brain a chance to take things slow.
A medically induced coma is used to slow brain activity after servere brain injuries. At that point the more active your brain is in the more follow up damage will be caused. Like when you try to use a broken limb. The coma gives the brain a chance to outheal the damage.
> But if your body wanted to go into a comatose state, wouldn’t it do it on its own as a defense mechanism to keep you alive?
Your body never really wants anything. It has misfireing mechanisms to stimuli. If your body ‘wanted’ to be alive why not eject cancer cells?
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