14 DAY TRIAL // A coma is a deep state of unconsciousness in which individuals are alive but unable to consciously respond to their environment. The individuals are alive in the sense that their internal processes continue to function. Comas can result from head trauma or strokes or from complications of an illness such as multiple sclerosis.
Comatose patients can sometimes move and respond to external stimuli. They can often smile, open their eyes, and even appear to have the desire speak. However, only around half of them actually survive. But, according to study published last year in the British Medical Journal, in soap operas only 8 percent of patients die.
Moreover, in reality, even when they awake from the coma, only 1 in 10 manage to regain their previous health - and this is usually after months of intense rehabilitation under strict medical supervision. On the other hand, in movies, comatose patients often simply wake up, remove their feeding tubes, and walk off the hospital.
In a recent study published in the journal Neurology, Eelco Wijdicks, a coma expert with the Mayo Clinic, concluded that only 2 out of 30 movies accurately represented comatose patients. Wijdicks also complained that comatose patients in movies look like "sleeping beauties" - often with their eyes closed - unlike reality. In reality comatose patients don't look too good because muscle deformity often occurs.
"We understand that making motion pictures is an art form and that entertainment is a very important component of that art form," Wijdicks said. "But this misrepresentation in both U.S. and foreign movies is problematic."
The author said that these miss-representations of comatose patients in movies and soap-operas influence people's decisions in real life. They offer false hopes - there's one thing to have a chance of 92 percent of returning from the "dead" instead of only 50 percent, and it's unlikely that someone can return from a 15 years coma and be like new, without the mental damage caused by the inhibition of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) during the coma.
"We are concerned that these movies can often be misinterpreted as realistic representations, especially in the wake of the Terri Schiavo tragedy and public debate," Wijdicks said. Terri Schiavo was in a coma from 1990 to 2005, when doctors finally removed her from life support after a long court battle between her husband and her parents (which eventually was won by the husband). The case received widespread media coverage especially in the United States.