The child in coma

Abstract

Children in coma continue to pose medical, social, economic, ethical, moral, and legal problems. Modern life-support technology has aggravated these problems. Coma is viewed as a pathological state of unconsciousness from which the patient has not achieved arousal, and which calls for vigorous action to help him regain consciousness. There are two variables that have an especially important bearing on the ability to achieve arousal. These are: the character of the brain injury that caused the coma, and environmental factors that affect the patient after the injury.