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Previous Volume 358:2653-2654 June 12, 2008 Number 24 Next

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By Eelco F.M. Wijdicks. 584 pp., illustrated, with DVD. New York, Oxford University Press, 2008. $125. ISBN 978-0-19-532626-0.

The venerable neurologist Charles Miller Fisher once said, "Coma is a continuum rather than a single state." Eelco Wijdicks's book justifies and expands on that idea. Although the term "coma" is derived from the Greek word koma, meaning a deep (presumably unarousable) sleep, a tremendous range of anatomical sites, causes, and mechanisms may be at work in cases of coma. The severity and reversibility of states of impaired alertness also vary widely.

The book's chapters are organized into two parts. Part I deals with the anatomy, physiology, and neurochemistry of consciousness and coma. The first chapter is a thorough review . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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