Business of Life

Can Someone in a Coma Hear?

I've always been told that one of the last senses to go is hearing.  When my husband lay dying for the longest 24 hours of my life, I talked and cried and swore and talked some more as I rubbed his growing colder feet.  I could only hope that he heard how much I loved him

Today, brain imaging technology can show that some people in comas respond to their loved ones speaking recalling shared experiences much as healthy people do.  From The New York Times, Signs of Awareness Seen in Brain-Injured Patients.

Thousands of brain-damaged people who are treated as if they are almost completely unaware may in fact hear and register what is going on around them but be unable to respond, a new brain-imaging study suggests. 

....."This study gave me goose bumps, because it shows this possibility of this profound isolation, that these people are there, that they've been there all along, even though we've been treating them as if they're not," said Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center.