ammonia levels

I have a question, my mother passed away a couple of days ago and all I can think of was her last days at the hospital, my question is, when a person that is awaiting a liver transplant and has many other problems that are going bad and her ammonia levels keeps rising and out of a sudden they can't respond back to any questions, can they understand what you are saying to them?

[Thomas D Schiano, MD]

when patients have chronic liver conditions they don't have much reserve so any time of illness, be it bleeding, dehydration, etc, can get the best of them as they will not be able to compensate.

[Thomas D Schiano, MD]

if patients are in hepatic coma its unlikely that they would be able to understand or hear what is going on around them.  I am sorry for your loss.

[ourlove]

Thank you for responding back Sir, ok what if they got out of the coma and started doing much better within days, and after three days their ammonia levels started rising, I noticed that she could understand what we were saying but couldn't respond back, did she know what we were saying, I mean, we would ask her questions and she would smile?

Thank you

[Thomas D Schiano, MD]

in the scenario that you describe, the patient could definitely have understood and comprehended what was going on.

[ourlove]

Thank you so much

[ourlove]

If she had internal bleeding, could she have been saved, everything was going bad, ammonia levels really high, blood pressure up and down, liver bad, diabetis and had just gotten out of coma?