Doctor explains what really happens to your body when you're in a coma
Kiesha Dosanjh
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
A doctor has explained what goes on inside the body while a patient is in a coma.
According to Cleveland Clinic, a coma 'is a deep unconscious state where you can’t wake up or respond, even to pain or loud sounds.'
A person can go into a coma for a number of reasons, including strokes, infections, overdoses or head injuries.
Dr Marcus Thompson, who has spent 10 years researching comas says on YouTube channel Inside the Feeling that during a coma 'certain areas of your brain are still processing information'.
Advert
"We know this because some coma patients show brain responses to voices, especially familiar voices," he says. "To touch, to pain. They're not awake, but some part of their brain is still receiving and processing input."
However, without consciousness to interpret the input, doctors are unsure about what they're experiencing.
The doc says 'every coma is different,' which is why they don't have definitive answers on whether people are aware on some level. Some report 'not remembering anything' after waking, while others remember 'voices or sensations'.
Despite doctors being unsure exactly what patients experience in their mind during a coma, they are more aware of what happens to your muscles.
In a coma, a person isn't moving, the doctor explains, and this could go on for months.
"Your muscles need movement to survive," he explains.
Within just 24 hours of your muscles not moving, they start to 'atrophy,' the doc says, which is partial or complete wasting away of a body part or tissue.
The medical term in this case is 'disuse atrophy' he explains.
"If you're not using a muscle, your body decides you don't need it, and starts cannibalizing it for protein," he says. The muscle fibres shrink, and mitochondria decrease.
He explains that after just one week in a coma, 5% of the muscle mass is lost, and after two weeks, it increases to 10-15% - raising to 30% loss in a month. As it is not evenly distributed, he explains more is lost in the legs than arms.
This is why coma patients need physical therapy after waking up.
He also why physical therapists move coma patients' limbs around multiple times a day.
This is due to the fact that 'tendons and ligaments also deteriorate,' Dr Thompson explains.
With the connective tissue holding a patients joints together becoming stiff, patients can experience contracture.
As per Cleveland Clinic, these are "structural changes to your soft and connective tissues that cause them to stiffen, tighten and contract."
This can include fingers curling into a fist, as well as elbow and knees locking, the doctor explains.
As the heart is also a muscle, the doctor explains that just like body muscles, it becomes 'less efficient' as it is not being used as much.