What does it mean when a person is in a vegetative state?

Question

What does it mean when a person is in a vegetative state?

Answer 1

It is another term for brain dead. Your body is still functioning, but you have no brain activity so you don't have the ability to eat, move, etc..

Answer 2

a vegitative state is when you are only alive. you cannot do anything for yourself, and you are not aware. have you heard of the term 'coma' ? it is when your mind is, for lack of a better term, asleep. your body can move, but you cannot control it, and you are not aware of it. it is like being asleep for that time. you are alive, but you are not aware of it. i suppose it would be like a neverending dream in which nothing was happening. there has been new evidence found of the ways of a coma. Terry Wallis is the man who was in a coma for nearly 20 years. he cannot walk yet, but he can talk well enough to understand, and he can move, but after 20 years, the muscles have to be built back up. there are some articles on here that show how his brain was regrowing necissary things that help with memory, and helped him return from his vegitative state. here are some sites if you would like to look him up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Walli...

http://www.theterrywallisfund.org/

the pic there is of my uncle terry and my cousin (his daughter) amber.

http://everything2.com/e2node/Terry%2520...

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_art...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/health...

Answer 3

That means the person can't move or do anything for him/herself.  S/he can't eat or talk or anything like that.

Answer 4

it means what it says they are like avegetable they breath etc but does not relize anything.

Answer 5

It typically means that they are alive but unconscious. Although this term is a misnomer as vegetative, vegetable, etc... stem from the Latin root vegetus which means "vibrant; full of life."

Answer 6

a condition in which patients are unconscious and unaware of their surroundings, but continue to have a sleep/wake cycle and can have periods of alertness.

Answer 7

They have no mobility n they lose all their sense's, only thing iz they have a heartbeat.

Answer 8

...not coherent and able to recognize real, false, good, or bad, to make a safe, sane, or any decisions...

Answer 9

Vegetative state refers to the body being alive...

i.e. breathing, heart beating

but no brain activity.

Like vegetables: they are alive:taking in food, growing, giving off oxygen... but no brain activity.