Fred Plum (January 10, 1924 – June 11, 2010) was an American neurologist who developed the terms "persistent vegetative state" and "locked-in syndrome" as part of his continuing research on consciousness and comas and care of the comatose.
Together with Jennett, he coined the term "persistent vegetative state" to describe patients with severe brain damage who were in a coma, and had the appearance of being conscious without any detectable awareness.
[1] Plum later coined the term "locked-in syndrome" to describe a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate due to complete paralysis of most voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes.
[4] A resident of Manhattan, Plum died at age 86 in a hospice there on June 11, 2010, due to primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia similar to Alzheimer's disease.
He was survived by his second wife, Susan, as well as by a daughter, Carol, and two sons, Michael and Christopher (married to Maureen B. Cavanaugh), from his first marriage to Jean Houston (died in 1999).