 | Unconsciousness: Encyclopedia - Unconsciousness
Unconsciousness
Unconsciousness, more appropriately referred to as loss of consciousness or lack of consciousness, is a dramatic alteration of mental state that involves complete or near-complete lack of responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli. Being in a comatose state or coma is an illustration of unconsciousness. Fainting due to a drop in blood pressure and a decrese of the oxygen supply to the brain is an illustration of a temporary loss of consciousness. Loss of consciousness must not be confused with altered states of consciousness, such as delirium (when the person is confused and only partially responsive to the environment), normal sleep, hypnosis, and other altered states in which the person responds to stimuli.
Loss of consciousness must not be confused with the notion of the psychoanalytic unconscious or cognitive processes (e.g., implicit cognition) that take place outside of awareness.
Loss of consciousness may occur as the result of traumatic brain injury, brain hypoxia (e.g., due to a brain infarction or cardiac arrest), severe poisoning with drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system (e.g., alcohol and other hypnotic or sedative drugs), and other causes.
Unconsciousness - Law and medicine
In jurisprudence, unconsciousness may entitle the criminal defendant to the defense of automatism, an excusing condition which allows a defendant to argue that they should not be held criminally liable for what would otherwise have been actions or omissions which broke the law. Courts rarely consider "falling asleep" (especially while driving or during surgery) to be an acceptable defense because natural sleep rarely overcomes an ordinary person without warning; however incidents related to epileptic seizures, neurological dysfunctions and sleepwalking may be considered acceptable excusing conditions because the loss of control may not be foreseeable.
On the other hand, someone who is less conscious cannot give informed consent to anything. This is relevant in the case of sexual behavior (not allowed with such a person), and also in the case of a patient, with regard to starting or stopping a treatment, and euthanasia.
coma, traumatic brain injury, consciousness, sleep, hypnosis, Do Not Resuscitate, Living will
See also
- coma
- traumatic brain injury
- consciousness
- sleep
- hypnosis
- Do Not Resuscitate
- Living will
Category: Consciousness studies
Other related archivesConsciousness studies, Do Not Resuscitate, Living will, actions, altered states of consciousness, automatism, coma, consciousness, criminal defendant, criminally, defense, delirium, driving, epileptic seizures, euthanasia, excusing condition, hypnosis, hypoxia, infarction, informed consent, jurisprudence, law, liable, loss of consciousness, neurological, sexual behavior, sleep, sleepwalking, surgery, traumatic brain injury, unconscious
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Unconsciousness", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
