Re: If nobody wakes . . .

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 19:50:29 -0600, Wildepad <noreplies@> wrote:

>>Coma = unrouseable unconsciousness.
>
>Aha! Is "these protective reflexes are generally lost" the main
>difference between the layman's concepts of 'coma' and 'sleep'?

No, the key difference is that ordinary stimuli (voice, touch, pain)
won't wake someone who's comatose.

>Do they also move, the common tossing-turning during normal sleep?

Yes, but not as much as some sleepers.

>>The net would be cast more widely to exclude increasingly obscure
>>causes...
>
>Like a real-world version of _House_?

Those guys are pikers compared to what happens in real life.

>I wonder how long it would take for someone to make the decision to
>cut off all electricity and natural gas to prevent fires.

I think that would happen within 48 hours, if appropriate disaster
plans were being implemented.

>>>Would the fact that (virtually) 100% of the population is affected be
>>>a clue that it isn't a disease?
>>
>>No. It could be some previously unrecognised condition which the
>>infectivity of the flu (or worse, the common cold).
>
>Surprising. On the other hand, it's not, especially since the first
>few waves of cases would be people who may have been affected a
>considerable number of hours before anyone noticed, and it would take
>even longer for those presently awake to show they are also affected.
>
>>>How long would it be before someone sacrificed a nurse -- giving her a
>>>thorough exam and then telling her to go take a nap?
>>
>>There will be volunteers, I suspect.
>>
>>Since MR scanners are housed in Faraday cages, and are used in
>>functional neurological imaging, someone somewhere may deduce the
>>effect of the emitter (the coma state can't be induced in a scan room
>>and victims wake up in the scanner if they are allowed to).
>
>Thanks -- that's an angle that never would have occurred to me.
>
>Now I just need a reason for an awake person to be given an MRI,
>having them go to sleep during the scan, having them stay asleep long
>enough to enter REM sleep while still in the scanner, and then they
>realize that it is the room itself, rather than the scanner, that kept
>them from becoming a victim. That shouldn't be a problem.
>
>>>>I'm one of those hospital workers - I have been giving anaesthetics
>>>>for most of the nights (2100-0700) of last week.
>>>
>>>How does that shift's staffing compare to daytime? 10%, 15%, 1%?
>>
>>15-20%.
>
>Add in firefighters, police, factory workers, etc. etc. etc, and you
>can see that a considerable amount of the population are day-sleepers.

Well...
Looking at typical incidences of occupation per x population for OECD
countries, I'm pushing to get much past 1% if you count emergency
services and hospital personnel and a small fudge factor for other
night-shifters (e.g. taxi drivers, some [few!] factory workers,
security guards, etc.)


Dr. Robert O'Connor

.

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