Society and Culture
Research by Dr. Eelco Wijdicks on the depiction of comas in movies was published in Neurology in May 2006. Dr. Wijdicks studied 30 films (made between 1970 and 2004) that portrayed actors in prolonged comas, and he concluded that only two films accurately depicted the state of a coma victim and the agony of waiting for a patient to awaken: Reversal of Fortune (1990) and The Dreamlife of Angels (1998). The remaining 28 were criticized for portraying miraculous awakenings with no lasting side effects, unrealistic depictions of treatments and equipment required, and comatose patients remaining muscular and tanned.
For decades, medical personnel and others have fought, and continue to fight, to define the circumstances for which a patient is “dead”. Society places a lot of importance on the idea of “brain death” because most “industrialized countries have equated this with death of the individual”. However, according to Rady and coworkers, “ human death is a singular phenomenon characterized by irreversible cessation of all vital functions (circulation, respiration, and consciousness)”. This means that death may be consisted of much more than just the brain’s inability to function. For example, although a patient may be “brain dead”, they may still be considered alive because they can still grow and even reproduce.
Read more about this topic: Coma
Famous quotes containing the words society and, society and/or culture:
“With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, and all that follows.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“We Americans are supposed to be overly concerned about the child. But actually the intelligent care of children in our society is balanced by a crass indifference to the helplessness of infancy and youth. Cruelty to children has become more widespread but less noticed in the general unrest, the constant migration, the family disintegration, and the other manifestations of a civilization that has been torn away from its original moorings.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“No race has the last word on culture and on civilization. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise.”
—Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)