Unconsciousness in the context of "Coma"

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⭐ Core Definition: Unconsciousness

Unconsciousness is a state in which a living individual exhibits a complete, or near-complete, inability to maintain an awareness of self and environment or to respond to any human or environmental stimulus. Unconsciousness may occur as the result of traumatic brain injury, brain hypoxia (inadequate oxygen, possibly due to a brain infarction or cardiac arrest), severe intoxication with drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system (e.g., alcohol and other hypnotic or sedative drugs), severe fatigue, pain, anaesthesia, and other causes.

Loss of consciousness should not be confused with the notion of the psychoanalytic unconscious, cognitive processes that take place outside awareness (e.g., implicit cognition), and with altered states of consciousness such as sleep, delirium, hypnosis, and other altered states in which the person responds to stimuli, including trance and psychedelic experiences.

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👉 Unconsciousness in the context of Coma

A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. The person may experience respiratory and circulatory problems due to the body's inability to maintain normal bodily functions. People in a coma often require extensive medical care to maintain their health and prevent complications such as pneumonia or blood clots. Coma patients exhibit a complete absence of wakefulness and are unable to consciously feel, speak or move. Comas can be the result of natural causes, or can be medically induced, for example, during general anesthesia.

Clinically, a coma can be defined as the consistent inability to follow a one-step command. For a patient to maintain consciousness, the components of wakefulness and awareness must be maintained. Wakefulness is a quantitative assessment of the degree of consciousness, whereas awareness is a qualitative assessment of the functions mediated by the cerebral cortex, including cognitive abilities such as attention, sensory perception, explicit memory, language, the execution of tasks, temporal and spatial orientation and reality judgment. Neurologically, consciousness is maintained by the activation of the cerebral cortex—the gray matter that forms the brain's outermost layer—and by the reticular activating system (RAS), a structure in the brainstem.

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Unconsciousness in the context of Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent (statutory rape). The wrongness of the rape is not merely or, on many occasions even primarily, the violence against the body of the victim but the violence against the very person of the victim. The term rape is sometimes casually used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.

The rate of reporting, prosecuting and convicting for rape varies between jurisdictions. Internationally, the incidence of rapes recorded by the police during 2008 ranged, per 100,000 people, from 0.2 in Azerbaijan to 92.9 in Botswana with 6.3 in Lithuania as the median. Worldwide, reported instances of sexual violence, including rape, are primarily committed by males against females. Rape by strangers is usually less common than rape by people the victim knows, and male-on-male prison rapes are common and may be the least reported forms of rape.

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Unconsciousness in the context of Implicit memory

In psychology, implicit memory is one of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is acquired and used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviours. One of its most common forms is procedural memory, which allows people to perform certain tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences; for example, remembering how to tie one's shoes or ride a bicycle without consciously thinking about those activities.

The type of knowledge that is stored in implicit memory is called implicit knowledge, implicit memory's counterpart is known as explicit memory or declarative memory, which refers to the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences and concepts.

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Unconsciousness in the context of Brain tumor

A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and secondary tumors, which most commonly have spread from tumors located outside the brain, known as brain metastasis tumors. All types of brain tumors may produce symptoms that vary depending on the size of the tumor and the part of the brain that is involved. Where symptoms exist, they may include headaches, seizures, problems with vision, vomiting and mental changes. Other symptoms may include difficulty walking, speaking, with sensations, or unconsciousness.

The cause of most brain tumors is unknown, though up to 4% of brain cancers may be caused by CT scan radiation. Uncommon risk factors include exposure to vinyl chloride, Epstein–Barr virus, ionizing radiation, and inherited syndromes such as neurofibromatosis, tuberous sclerosis, and von Hippel-Lindau Disease. Studies on mobile phone exposure have not shown a clear risk. The most common types of primary tumors in adults are meningiomas (usually benign) and astrocytomas such as glioblastomas. In children, the most common type is a malignant medulloblastoma. Diagnosis is usually by medical examination along with computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The result is then often confirmed by a biopsy. Based on the findings, the tumors are divided into different grades of severity.

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Unconsciousness in the context of Anaesthesia

Anesthesia (American English) or anaesthesia (British English) is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), amnesia (loss of memory), and unconsciousness. An individual under the effects of anesthetic drugs is referred to as being anesthetized.

Anesthesia enables the painless performance of procedures that would otherwise require physical restraint in a non-anesthetized individual, or would otherwise be technically unfeasible. Three broad categories of anesthesia exist:

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Unconsciousness in the context of Diving helmet

A diving helmet is a rigid head enclosure with a breathing gas supply used in underwater diving. They are worn mainly by professional divers engaged in surface-supplied diving, though some models can be used with scuba equipment. The upper part of the helmet, known colloquially as the hat or bonnet, may be sealed directly to the diver using a neck dam, connected to a diving suit by a lower part, known as a breastplate, or corselet, depending on regional language preferences, or simply rest on the diver's shoulders, with an open bottom, for shallow water use.

The helmet isolates the diver's head from the water, allows the diver to see clearly underwater, provides the diver with breathing gas, protects the diver's head when doing heavy or dangerous work, and usually provides voice communications with the surface (and possibly other divers). If a helmeted diver becomes unconscious but is still breathing, most helmets will remain in place and continue to deliver breathing gas until the diver can be rescued. In contrast, the scuba regulator used by recreational divers must be held in the mouth by bite grips, and it can fall out of an unconscious diver's mouth and result in drowning.

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Unconsciousness in the context of Induced coma

An induced coma – also known as a medically induced coma (MIC), barbiturate-induced coma, or drug-induced coma – is a temporary coma (a deep state of unconsciousness) brought on by a controlled dose of an anesthetic drug, often a barbiturate such as pentobarbital or thiopental. Other intravenous anesthetic drugs such as midazolam or propofol may be used.

Drug-induced comas are used to protect the brain during major neurosurgery, as a last line of treatment in certain cases of status epilepticus that have not responded to other treatments, and in refractory intracranial hypertension following traumatic brain injury.

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Unconsciousness in the context of Strangling

Strangling or strangulation is the compression of the neck leading to restriction of the flow of oxygen through the trachea. Strangling causes an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain, which can lead to unconsciousness or even death. Fatal strangulation typically occurs in cases of violence, accidents, and is one of two main ways that hanging causes death (alongside breaking the victim's neck).

Strangling does not have to be fatal; limited or interrupted strangling is practised in erotic asphyxia, in the choking game, and is an important technique in many combat sports and self-defense systems. Strangling can be divided into three general types according to the mechanism used:

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