Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. A condition of patients with severe brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of wakefulness without awareness.
Wikipedia
A persistent vegetative state (PVS) is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. After four weeks in a vegetative state (VS), the patient is classified as in a persistent (or 'continuing') vegetative state. This diagnosis is classified as a permanent vegetative state some months (3 in the US and 6 in the UK) after a non-traumatic brain injury or one year after a traumatic injury. Nowadays, more doctors and (neuro)scientists prefer to call the state of consciousness an unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, primarily because of ethical questions about whether a patient can be called "vegetative" or not.
Usage examples of "persistent vegetative state".
After I've stopped chucking and coughing they restart the video and we cut to the other scene and the tall hospital chair and the little guy again with empty eyes and McDunn says his bit about Persistent Vegetative State.
He is now in a persistent vegetative state, which they helpfully translate for the reader as ‘.
She had read the statistics on coma patients and the persistent vegetative state.
But what was the difference between that and a persistent vegetative state?
In their application for human clinical trials, the Sorensen researchers outlined protocols for testing the drug first on healthy subjects, and then on several types of patients: stroke victims, sufferers of Alzheimer's, and persons -- like me -- in a persistent vegetative state.