Scientists Backtracking On Vegetative State

With the news that a brain damaged 23 year-old woman in a vegetative state is actually showing brain activity and the ability to imagine, some doctors are now sounding a little less clear when it comes to the expression brain dead.

The brain scan study of the 23-year-old, who suffered serious brain damage in a traffic accident, suggests that some seemingly unaware patients may understand more than had been thought.

The findings could have a big impact on decisions about whether to switch off life support for those in a persistent vegetative state.

Adrian Owen, of the British Medical Research Council's cognition and brain sciences unit in Cambridge, said the vegetative state, in which a patient emerges from a coma and appears awake but shows no signs of awareness, was poorly understood.

"It is one of the most ethically troublesome conditions in modern medicine," he said.

Ethically troublesome? Poorly understood? While the news may be too late for some, unlike Haleigh Poutre, this may have significant ramifications for similar cases in the future. Poutre is another young girl showing signs of recovery after basically being given up for dead.

The state of Massachusetts almost murdered her. They deemed her "virtually brain-dead," in a "vegetative state," and not worth saving. Now, she is "bright-eyed and smiling," responsive, and speaking a few words. Update from MassLive.com/Republican:

As for this newest case, neuroscientists are said to be stunned.

The discovery has astounded neuroscientists, who believe it could have dramatic implications for life-and-death decisions over other patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state.

The BBC calls it communicating and apparently the woman's brain scans indicate she can actually understand language and imagine playing a sport.

By scanning her brain, they discovered she could understand spoken commands and even imagine playing tennis.

They said their findings, published in Science, were "startling", but cautioned this could be a one-off case.

Five months after her accident, which happened in July 2005, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to record the woman's brain activity.

One-off? Isn't that better than no hope of a life at all because someone pulled the plug? Check in on Haleigh. They may want to make it two.

Last year, an intense legal battle in the US over the life of Terri Schiavo, a woman diagnosed as PVS, was brought to an end when US courts upheld the decision to remove her feeding tube in March.

Comments

[Denise ARNP]

I was one of the ARNP's that was assigned to take care of Terri Schiavo. This so called woman had absolutely no cognition. She couldn't speak, comprehend or understand. Her high point was making guttoral sounds and being incontinent of stool. We all used to joke that if you wanted to understand her, you needed a vegetable to english dictionary. There hasn't been one printed yet. That would have been the ONLY reason to keep her alive - research. Floridians were overwhelmingly against the intervention of Bush, the Congress and the Senate. We're making them pay at the polls. I think it's safe to say that Govenor Crist was one of the few that intervened to stop that nonsense. He was the one who had Michael investigated and found there were "absolutely NO basis for any of the abuse or neglect claims and the world better leave Michael alone or face the consequences." That's why he's our next govenor and Bill Nelon will be re-elected to another term. This crazy psycho-christian garbage will end - we'll make sure of it in Florida!!

[strayze]

This is another example of hopefully, a neurological survivor. I've wondered who PET scans have not been used to answer the difficult questions, or why this is the first being that little research is available in this area. It seems far simpler for physicans to draw conclusions from clinical observations, when the basis of those observations are not understood.

For a variety of reasons including especially medical ignorance, lack of patience, and (oh yes) insurance dictates, countless neurogical cases are all too easily given up on, when in some cases, the problem lies in overmedication of high blood pressure and other common medications. The neurological implications are seldom taken into consideration. Fortunately, many are reversible, but they must be first understood by docs unfamiliar with neurology. Seventy percent of common prescription medications have neurological effects. Taking pills for allergies, for blood pressure, for a host of conditions, must be carefully considered as to minimum dose, absolute necessity, etc. Just because there is a pill for everything does not mean that the cumulative
effect to treating everything results in good health. People end up in nursing homes unable to care for themselves, when all that was needed was a sensible survey of all of the medications, including those "natural" ones. Some of of the worst neurological offenders are "natural" available in "health" food stores. Just think twice before adding more medications of any kind. If you don't look after yourself and vigilantly question necessity, no one else will.

Here's to Haleigh and others like her who escaped murder by incomprehensible ignorance,

[Ericmd]

I agree with the ARNP. Teri Schiavo doesn't fit into this category. The only way Terri Schiavo could have gotten better is by visiting the Wizard of OZ and asking for a new brain. She had none. It was destroyed in her anoxic episode. Anybody that can read a CAT scan could see that!!