Explanation of my edits:
- IV (intravenous tube) - more medical term than "tiny plastic tube"; also not necessarily plastic.
- Ventilator - trachea in place of windpipe. Introduced different methods of delivering mechanical ventilation.
- Bedsores - not necessarily open sores. Open sores are Stage 2 ulcers and above.
As this relates to the link on the main page
There is a pretty fundamental difference between a coma and a vegetative state. Coma patients are unconscious and unresponsive (but may possess some reflexes) and they do not experience normal sleep/wake cycles. Patients in a vegetative state do experience periods of arousal sometimes mimicking normal sleep/wake cycles, they are generally unresponsive to external stimuli but they may engage in various involuntary movements. It is important to note that in patients who are truly in a vegetative state, the "wakeful" seeming behaviors that they exhibit do not result from any "higher order" brain functions--they are simply the consequence of having an intact brain stem. Generally, the possibility of a patient recovering from a persistent vegetative state (a vegetative state that persists for longer than four weeks) is near zero. --RudrickBoucher 09:05, 27 October 2011 (EDT)