Brain Death
The term "Brain Death" has an ominous implication, and rightfully so, but is occasionally wrongfully used with tragic consequences.

Coma Arousal
The first myth is that no treatment is possible for prolonged coma. This concept is embodied in the widely used definition of coma: "a sleep-like state from which an individual cannot be aroused". Dr. Edward LeWinn rewrote the definition more appropriately as "a sleep-like state from which an individual has not yet been aroused".

Coma Help Page
The webmistress tells how helping her mother recover from a coma taught her that coma is not as hopeless as we've been taught to believe.

Coma Recovery Association, Inc.
Created to dispel common myths about coma and "persistent vegitative state."

Coma Recovery Program
Shining bright lights into the patient's eyes, clapping blocks of wood together next to his ear, touching extremities with ice cubes - are these good nursing care? They may be if you are caring for a patient in a coma rehabilitation program.

Coma
Coma, due to brain injury, is not an isolated phenomenon, but is instead an integral part of the unbroken continuum that extends from death and profound coma at one end of the spectrum to very mild brain-injury and normality at the other.

COMA: A Treatable Symptom of Brain Injury
The International Coma Recovery Institute says that as long as progress is observed, there is room for more progress, and potential for recovery is huge. The Institute will continue to explore ways to improve recovery in the hope that one day all individuals aroused from coma will achieve independent activity.

Deprivation In Coma
Are the symptoms of coma caused in part by the care given (or not given) to coma patients?

Explaining Coma Arousal Therapy
"It cannot be proven that there is no potential for recovery following brain injury, even in the most severe cases ... because there is no known diagnostic test that can scientifically demonstrate that recovery of function will not occur..."

Hypoxic Coma
With intense stimulation, roughly 90% of patients in coma due to oxygen deprivation can be aroused from coma, with about 15% achieving functional recovery.

From coma victim to new mom, woman's recovery shocks doctors
A pregnant woman recovers from a coma to give birth to twins.

Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential
Coma is not a diagnosis but rather a description of a dramatic symptom of profound brain injury.

Mom Awakens from 16-Year Coma
Patricia "Happi" White Bull returns to her children after being in a vegetative state for 16 years.

NOVA: Coma
The companion site the the PBS program.

What Is Coma?
"The close outward similarity between sleep and coma triggered the definition of coma: "coma is a sleep-like state from which an individual cannot be aroused". In all its simplicity and apparent clarity, this definition is fraught with inaccuracy and danger."

While I Was Sleeping
A woman reflects back on the choices her husband made while she was in a coma.

While You are Waiting
Information and support for loved ones of patients with brain injury.

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