What is "persistent vegetative state"?

What is "persistent vegetative state"?

Les Weiner (Former Chair of the Department of Neurology, University of Southern California) gives expert video advice on: How long can a person be in a coma?; What is "persistent vegetative state"? and more...

We have about ten thousand people in this country each day who are in what we call persistent vegetative state, which means their eyes are open but they don't have any input. This would be the Terri Schiavo type of thing. They have significant brain damage, they may be breathing on their own, they may have a normal heart, but overall, their brain is nonfunctional and it will never be functional. They are being kept alive by machinery and after a while they are on their own. That is what we call persistent vegetative state, and there's a lot of argument about it, but there's absolutely no evidence that those people can receive messages or give messages. After you've been in a coma for about four to six weeks, your eyes are open for the most part, they don't see, but they're open.