Construct · 2 fields · 3 citations

Where does coma collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
coma2 CONSTRUCTSComa (medical)GLASGOW COMA SCALEComa aberrationSEIDEL · OFF-AXIS BLUR

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2026

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Clinical medicine

A state of deep, unarousable unconsciousness

In clinical medicine, coma is a state of profound, unarousable unconsciousness in which a patient cannot be woken, does not open the eyes to stimulation, and shows no purposeful response, reflecting severe dysfunction of the brainstem arousal systems or widespread cortical injury. Teasdale and Jennett's 1974 Assessment of coma and impaired consciousness introduced the Glasgow Coma Scale, which grades depth of coma by eye, verbal, and motor responses. The referent is a clinical level of consciousness, graded and tracked over time, and it is unrelated to a comet's atmosphere or an off-axis lens blur beyond the shared image of something dormant.[1][2]

Unit
Depth and duration of unresponsiveness, graded on the Glasgow Coma Scale
Recovery means
Recovery is emergence from coma: the return of arousal (eye opening) and then awareness and purposeful responses
Measured by
Assessed with the Glasgow Coma Scale scoring best eye, verbal, and motor responses, alongside brainstem reflexes

Optics

An off-axis aberration that smears points into comet-like tails

In optics, coma is a monochromatic off-axis aberration in which a point source away from the optical axis images not as a point but as an asymmetric, comet-shaped smear with a bright core and a flaring tail, because annular zones of the lens at different radii image the off-axis point at slightly different magnifications and positions. It is one of the third-order (Seidel) aberrations, treated in Born and Wolf's Principles of optics. The referent is a defect of image formation across the field, quantified by a coma coefficient, and the name borrows only the comet's visual shape, not a comet's physics or a patient's state.[3]

Unit
The lateral spread of the comet-shaped blur produced for an off-axis point
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Quantified by the Seidel coma coefficient and the transverse extent of the comatic flare across the field

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Nearby collisions

aberration4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructscomet1 fields · 1 citationsanchor · a standalone constructacceleration4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Teasdale, G., & Jennett, B. (1974). Assessment of coma and impaired consciousness: A practical scale. The Lancet, 304(7872), 81–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(74)91639-0
  2. Posner, J. B., Saper, C. B., Schiff, N. D., & Plum, F. (2007). Plum and Posner's diagnosis of stupor and coma (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195321319
  3. Born, M., & Wolf, E. (1999). Principles of optics: Electromagnetic theory of propagation, interference and diffraction of light (7th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521642224

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