Posted on 09/07/2006 9:05:48 PM PDT by neverdem
A severely brain-damaged woman in an unresponsive, vegetative state showed clear signs on brain imaging tests that she was aware of herself and her surroundings, researchers are reporting today, in a finding that could have far-reaching consequences for how unconscious patients are cared for and how their conditions are diagnosed.
In response to commands, the patient’s brain flared with activity, lighting the same language and movement-planning regions that are active when healthy people hear the commands. Previous studies had found similar activity in partly conscious patients, who occasionally respond to commands, but never before in someone who was totally unresponsive.
Neurologists cautioned that the new report characterized only a single, perhaps unique case and that it did not mean that unresponsive brain-damaged people were more likely to recover or that treatment was possible. The woman in the study could not communicate with the researchers, and there was no way to know whether her subjective experience was anything like what healthy people call consciousness. The woman was injured in a traffic accident in England last year.
Yet the study so drastically contradicted the woman’s diagnosed condition that it exposed the limitations of standard methods of bedside diagnosis. And its findings are bound to raise hopes for tens of thousands of families caring for unresponsive, brain-damaged patients around the world — whether those hopes are justified or not, experts said.
“One always hesitates to make a lot out of a single case, but what this study shows me is that there may be more going on in terms of patients’ self-awareness than we can learn at the bedside,” said Dr. James Bernat, a professor of neurology at the Dartmouth Medical School, who was not involved in the study. “Even though we might assume some patients are not aware, I think we should...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I agree.
Doctors who believe in killing handicapped patients make few great discoveries.
They are merely executioners.
Thanks to all contributors to this thread. BTTT.
life
Good thread.
bump!
tried, there was fraud involved all around, including the hospital, the funeral home manager stepped up and signed and afidavit, still we did not get any action on my state complaints, they were found guilty, but there is not any regulation, so they get off scott free, I keep on plugging, I did get legislation passed though, it will help protect others that want to donate from their loved ones being scavenged without their permission.
Since hospitals have federal mandates in place which allow charts to be obtained by immediate family from the medical records department (this isn't a local issue) you should write to the AG in your state and if that doesn't work, go to your Senator, the US AG etc.... but a good attorney would know that. It's a FOIA issue. Good luck.
I'm glad you posted this, as I was about to. Very interesting article, as it clearly lays the groundwork that there *might* have been life after all in Terri Schiavo. Of course, the NYT couldn't run that story as-is so they had to pepper this article with all kinds of "BUT, you know, this didn't apply to Terri Schiavo" BS.
Truth is, no one really knows what goes in in an injured brain so we HAVE to err on the side of life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.