Where did you find your definition?
In 1994 a Multi-Society Task Force made up of representatives of the American Academy of Neurology, the Child Neurology Society, the American Neurological Association, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and the American Academy of Pediatrics produced a Consensus Statement on the Medical Aspects of the Persistent Vegetative State (PVS). * The vegetative state can be diagnosed according to the following criteria; (1) no evidence of awareness of self or environment and an inability to interact with others; (2) no evidence of sustained, reproducible, purposeful, or voluntary behavioural responses to visual, auditory, tactile, or noxious stimuli; (3) no evidence of language comprehension or expression; (4) intermittent wakefulness manifested by the presence of sleep-wake cycles; (5) sufficiently preserved hypothalamic and brain-stem autonomic function to permit survival with medical and nursing care; (6) bowel and bladder incontinence; and (7) variably preserved cranial-nerve reflexes (pupillary, oculophalic, corneal, vestibulo-ocular, and gag) and spinal reflexes..... A wakeful unconscious state that lasts longer than a few weeks is referred to as a persistent vegetative state.
(THE PERMANENT VEGETATIVE STATE; ETHICAL CRUX, MEDICAL FICTION?)
Come, on. Take a wild guess. Get really down and dirty here.
"Where did you find your definition?"
Sorry, I usually remember to give the link -
http://www.xenos.org/ministries/crossroads/donal/pvs.htm