When you are critically injured, why is it important to stay awake. Does your body react to injury differently when you are conscious vs unconscious?
In: Biology
There are some minor benefits, like others mentioned it helps you communicate with whoever is treating your injuries, which *may* help them give you more appropriate care.
It’s mostly a myth that came around because people noticed victims that fall unconscious after injuries tend to die more often, but this is because those injuries are often worse.
The truth is, this is not necessarily because those people *chose* to pass out and that decision killed them, instead they passed out because they were suffering from a very serious injury, which is the same thing that killed them.
This is really for the responder, to properly gauge the patient is receiving adequate perfusion to the brain. Blood loss = loss of O2. Perfusion = O2 being circulated through the body aka perfusing or sending oxygen (O2) to the brain.
Nothing different occurs except that when you’re unconscious you are not actively breathing therefore not receiving oxygen. Pathophysiologically nothing different occurs.
Similarly if you are awake, you can provide feedback on a pain scale (1-10).
From a non-medical standpoint, many people believe that there is some amount of conscious decision to live or die. Like you may hear “he lost the will to live” or the family telling a terminal patient that it is okay to “let go”.
So in the case of an emergency, they want the injured person to stay awake and focussed on living.
its really nott, itsj sut more useful for the injured party to remain awake t obeable ot report ot responders so they can get more approriate care.
“its easier/faster for you to tell me where it hurts, than having me guess increasing your chances of being saved”
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