Posted on 07/12/2006 4:41:16 PM PDT by wagglebee
Like Terri Schiavo, doctors predicted that Terry Wallis would last indefinitely in this condition and not improve.
However, Wallis now speaks and interacts and can count to 25 on his own. His brain has rewired itself by growing new connections from those that were severed in an automobile accident.
Researchers published a paper earlier this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation about Wallis' story and say that his case provides strong evidence that the brain heals itself by forming new neural connections. The article includes images of Mr. Wallis' brain, the first ones to be taken from a recovering comatose patient.
“This new finding will hopefully save many lives, as we are repeatedly seeing a growing number of people being incorrectly diagnosed as ‘PVS’ which is essentially a death sentence,” Robert Schindler, Terri's father, said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained.
“Sadly, this only confirms the subjectivity of the PVS diagnosis which, according to a recent study by the British Medical Journal, is misdiagnosed 43% of the time," Schindler added.
Schindler is concerned that a "PVS diagnosis is too often used as criteria to terminate life and common sense dictates that it should be abolished.”
While some observers say the situations of Terry Wallis and Terri Schiavo are different, Schindler maintains that the only difference was Wallis was given proper medical care and rehabilitation while Terri's former husband Michael refused her care for many years.
During the long legal battle between the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo, Dr. William Maxfield testified that he believed that part of Terri’s brain was improving. The autopsy conducted on Terri confirmed her frontal temporal, temporal poles and insular-cortex demonstrated relative preservation.
This meant the parts of her brain that control higher level thinking was more normal than some believed.
He also pointed to the 40 medical affidavits submitted to the court saying Terri was not PVS and that she could improve with rehabilitative therapy.
"Sadly, no one will ever know how much Terri would have improved because she was warehoused and denied any form of therapy or rehabilitation for over thirteen years," Schindler said.
The family has established the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation to help disabled, elderly, and vulnerable patients and their families obtain proper medical care and treatment.
Related web sites:
Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation - http://www.terrisfight.org
Exactly!
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
Terri Schiavo Family Says Terry Wallis Case Shows Errors Diagnosing PVS
This is an excellent article!
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Terri Ping.
Very worrying.
And yet a judge could make a determination that it was proper to end food and water based on assurances of pro-death groups. Now there's a legacy to take to the grave with you...
Such is the world of moral relativism. Each situation can be determined by how it affects someone else personal life and not based on the intrinsic value all human life holds.
Her and this guys problems were completely different. The only similarity is that they both involved the brain.
He had nerve damage. Nerves can heal themselves in certain circumstances over time. Its been proven.
He was in a coma and his brain was still intact. It had not been robbed of oxygen for an exteneded period of time as in the case of Terri S. Its two entirely different set of circumstances and conditions.
Parts of Terri's brain had completely disintegrated from the damage of being cut off from oxygen for an extended period of time and would never be able grow back or fix itself with more time. It would be like having your arm cut off and expecting a new one to grow back. Not going to happen.
Her and this guys problems were completely different. The only similarity is that they both involved the brain.
He had nerve damage. Nerves can heal themselves in certain circumstances over time. Its been proven.
He was in a coma and his brain was still intact. It had not been robbed of oxygen for an exteneded period of time as in the case of Terri S. Its two entirely different set of circumstances and conditions.
Parts of Terri's brain had completely disintegrated from the damage of being cut off from oxygen for an extended period of time and would never be able grow back or fix itself with more time. It would be like having your arm cut off and expecting a new one to grow back. Not going to happen.
However, there is still the matter of how Terri Schiavo would have fared if she had been given proper medical care and therapy which her estranged husband denied her for years as he sought to ensure her death.
Nice explanation. However, you'll soon learn that facts have no place on Terri threads.
she was brain damaged, not brain dead, medical fact. We don't starve brain damaged people, that is murder!
oh really. SO you think it is ok to let a brain damaged individual die of starvation and dehydration? Interesting.
The most glaring fact is the Death Squad murdered Terri. Care to deny that fact?
Every credible medical expert who examined the shell that used to be Terri Schaivo agreed with Proud_USA_Republican and ContraryMary. The only doctors who said Ms. Schaivo had any hope of recovery were like that quack Hammesfahr - people without a scintilla of scientific or medical credibility.
This is the liquifed brain of the shell that used to be Terri Schaivo:
This brain is quantifiably not "intact." Slippery slopes are logical fallacies; Terri wasn't "disabled," her brain was liquified. Nothing left.
The Schindler/Schiavo case was immeresed in inuendo, deceit, manipulation, political posturing, media whoring, grandstanding, junk science, warped piousness, and emotional polarity (thanks to the media circus).
Yet, here, from dead center, is a bedrock rational remark -- like the calm of the eye of a hurricane.
It is not to Terri's detriment, but to our own, that the voice of reason was drowned out during the Terri Schiavo legal travesty.
eeeeeeeveryone's an expert.
You an American citizen? Your guaranteed a right to life, whether you're brain is liquid, solid, or vapor (this is by no means an endorsement of the slides that are supposed to be "silver bullets" in the debate, nor of the logic that suggests their invocation is remotely valid). You got a problem with someone else's right to life? Move.
Privacy is a fundamental right rooted in the Fourth Amendment.
No, they're just facts the Terribots can't answer - because it shows how foolish their claims that she was fully conscious and coherent was.
Just because the fact eviscerates the Terribot position doesn't mean I shouldn't use them. In fact, it shows that the Terribot position is intellectually bankrupt.
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