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The case of Terri Schiavo--who died five years ago next March, deprived for nearly two weeks of food and water, even the balm of ice chips--continues to prick consciences. That may be one reason the case of Rom Houben, a Belgian man who was misdiagnosed for 23 years as being in a persistent vegetative state, is now receiving international attention. In 1983, Houben suffered catastrophic head injuries in an automobile accident. He arrived at the hospital unconscious. Doctors eventually concluded that his case was hopeless, and his family was told he would never waken. But the Houben family, like...

By Alex Schadenberg, Chairman, Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionNovember 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Many people will have read the story of Rom Houben, the Belgium man who was diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) for 23 years, but who in fact had a condition known as Locked-in Syndrome. A person in locked-in syndrome is fully aware of all of their surroundings and they hear and remember the conversations that take place around them, but due to their cognitive disability they are unable to respond.The case of Rom Houben is significant given that many bioethicists are attempting to redefine...

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

Contact: Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, 727-490-7603   ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Aug. 29 /Christian Newswire/ -- The family of Robert Schindler, Sr. releases the following statement:   Robert S. Schindler, Sr., of Gulfport, Florida, father of the late Terri Schindler Schiavo, passed away August 29, 2009 from heart failure at Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida.   Robert fought valiantly to save the life of his brain-injured daughter Terri in the landmark right to life case that culminated in her imposed death by court-ordered starvation and thirst on March 31, 2005. After Terri's death, along with his wife Mary, daughter...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The neurologist for Eluana Englaro, the disabled woman who has become the center of an international debate over whether she should be killed via euthanasia, says she is healthy. All of the medical tests conducted prior to Friday's stoppage of food and water reveal a healthy patient. Englaro was injured in an automobile accident in 1992 and has been in a minimally conscious state ever since. Her father recently won the legal right to kill her by removing her feeding tube.Carlo Alberto Defanti, who is overseeing the withdrawal of food and water, made the comments...

Haleigh was being given food and water through a feeding and hydration tube. A year later, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services filed a legal motion to remove it. They cited the medical finding of “PVS”. Her stepfather then sued to prevent the removal of the assistance. There was speculation in some sources that he did this to avoid criminal charges for murder. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the assistance could be removed in a controversial ruling. One day after the ruling, Haleigh surprised all of her caregivers by breathing without the need for assistance and showing signs...

Enlarge ImageAltered perceptions? Minimally conscious patients may have a greater capacity to feel pain than do those in a vegetative state (such as Terri Schiavo, above).Credit: Reuters Most of the time, doctors have a simple way to determine if a patient needs pain medication: They ask. But when a brain injury renders someone unable to respond to questions, the right course of action becomes murkier. Now a study finds that the brains of some patients with brain injuries respond to an unpleasant electrical shock much as do the brains of healthy people, suggesting that these patients may feel pain...

This segment was originally broadcast on Nov. 25, 2007. It was updated on Aug. 28, 2008. Three years ago, Terri Schiavo sparked a nationwide debate when she was removed from a feeding tube. Schiavo was in a permanent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. But there are as many as 300,000 other Americans who have survived brain injuries, only to be trapped in what's called a "minimally conscious state." They can't talk, walk, or eat, but they retain more mental awareness than vegetative patients. For decades now, minimally conscious people have been all but written off by the medical...

Not long after complaining of shortness of breath at her Quinlan home, Patricia Cannon was in a Hunt County ambulance heading north toward Greenville with a drug dripping into her veins capable of paralyzing every muscle in her body.The drug, succinylcholine, was administered by a paramedic. The intent was for Cannon, thought to be suffering from a blood clot in the lung, to be immobilized while a breathing tube was placed in her windpipe.But something happened along the way that prevented the tube from being inserted correctly. The job wasn't done until the ambulance delivered Cannon, 41, to the emergency...

Of course, Pro-deathers will be quick to keep the Schiavo case in check.

Interesting article about the awareness of vegetative patients. We are not able to post the New Yorker's content, but check out the link. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/15/071015fa_fact_groopman?printable=true

LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics. She is a new opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. In the September 25th issue of the online magazine Salon, neurologist Robert Burton takes issue with an important—and to most people encouraging—article that appeared in the Archives of Neurology. The title of Burton’s piece suggests the direction he is headed: “The Light is On, But is Anybody Home?” The former chief of neurology at Mount Zion-UCSF Hospital and the...

Pope Rules Patients in Permanent Vegetative State May Not be Denied Artificial Nutrition and Hydration Response to certain questions raised by US Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning artificial nutrition and hydration By John-Henry Westen VATICAN CITY, September 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In most hospitals in North America, families of patients in permanent vegetative state are asked if they wish their family member to have their artificial feeding tube removed. According to a definitive ruling by the Vatican made public today, the withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration from such patients is immoral. The ruling from the Vatican's Congregation for the...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- British researchers say that scans of the brain activity of a disabled woman there show normal levels despite a diagnosis from doctors that she is supposedly in a persistent vegetative state. This is the second time the research have found normal brain activity in a PVS patient. Adrian Owen and other scientists at Cambridge University reported on Monday about the findings of their new study, which shows that researchers may be able to predict which comatose patients can recover. Owen and his team used functional magnetic resonance imaging to look at the activity in the patient's...

Two short weeks after the culmination of a legal battle between his wife and family over whether to maintain his life support, Jesse Ramirez of Arizona appears to be on the road to recovery. According to local reports, Ramirez, 36, suffered traumatic brain injury in a May 30 car accident, which put him in a coma. He had been in this minimally-conscious state for a little more than a week when doctors informed his wife that he may never recover -- and she made the decision to have his feeding and water tubes removed. Ramirez's family made a legal appeal...

CHANDLER, Arizona, June 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Written off by doctors as a hopeless “vegetable”, an Arizona man would not now be on his way to recovery from an accident caused by a marital quarrel if not for his family’s unrelenting struggle for his life. The Arizona Republic reports that on Wednesday, Jesse Ramirez, awoke from his nearly month long persistent vegetative state (PVS) and now “can hug and kiss, nod his head, answer yes and no questions, give a thumbs-up sign and sit in a chair.” If not for the past few weeks’ legal battles that ended Tuesday with...

Rhodes, Greece (LifeNews.com) -- A new international study finds that about forty percent of patients like Terri Schiavo who are supposedly in a persistent vegetative state are misdiagnosed and another fifty percent of them recover from their situation. The study finds the patients in question were in a minimally conscious state and could improve. The studies, conducted by researchers in Belgium, found that the level of misdiagnosis has not decreased in the last 15 years. There were presented at the European Neurological Society Meeting in Greece. Dr. Steven Laureys, from the Coma Science Group at the University of Liиge, stressed...

RHODES, June 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - News-Medical.net is reporting on a series of studies that show a high rate of misdiagnosis and inaccuracy in patients deemed to be in a "permanent vegetative state" (PVS). The researchers say that the problem is grounds for "extreme caution" in decisions that might "limit the life chances" of patients. The pretext of a PVS diagnosis is commonly put forward by the euthanasia movement as a reason to allow euthanasia by dehydration, as in the case of Terri Schiavo.  Researchers at the University of Liège in Belgium examined data on over 5900 patients at the intensive...

COLORADO SPRINGS, March 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A woman who spent nearly seven years in a coma, woke up for a short time Sunday and started talking. Christa Lilly, a native of Colorado Springs, relapsed into her previous unconscious state today. Lilly suffered a heart attack and then a stroke in November 2000 and was diagnosed as being in a "vegetative" state but with her eyes open. Like Florida's Terri Schindler Schiavo, she is being kept alive by a feeding and hydration tube while unconscious.    During her short period of wakefulness, Lilly spoke with CBS affiliate KKTV news reporters, saying,...

GRESHAM, Oregon October 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A young boy, who had previously been diagnosed as being in a “permanent vegetative state,” has awakened from a 22 month-long coma and is breathing on his own.Devon Rivers collapsed in a seizure during a phys-ed class in 2004 and his condition was never explained, though some doctors suggested it was caused by an unknown viral infection. Doctors agreed, however, that he had little hope of recovery. His mother, Carla Rivers, visited him regularly and, in addition to physical therapy by his paediatric nursing home to keep his limbs supple, she talked...

MELBOURNE, Australia, October 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Patients designated as in a “persistent vegetative state (PVS)” should be used for medical experiments, according to several top bioethicists, regardless of whether or not prior consent was obtained.Several articles published in the recent issue of the Journal of Medical debated the potential use of patients with non-responsive brain function for such medical experiments as animal organ transplants—to bypass ethic prohibitions against using a living human being for medical experimentation, some even suggested designating such patients as “dead,” saying their cognitive impairments justified treating them as cadavers.Dr. John Shea, medical advisor to...

Close window Published online: 23 May 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060522-9 Sleeping pills offer wake-up call to vegetative patients Drug could overcome brain shutdown caused by trauma.Michael Hopkin Clinical researchers have discovered that they can rouse semi-comatose patients by giving them, bizarrely, a common sleeping drug. If more wide-ranging tests are successful, the drug could become the first effective treatment for 'persistent vegetative state', the condition at the centre of the US legal battle over sufferer Terri Schiavo last year. British and South African doctors have reported the cases of three semi-comatose patients who were revived for several hours at a...

ROME, September 15, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new case-study raises more doubts about the ethical determination of “brain-death”, since researchers discovered that a patient suffering from a “persistent vegetative state” (PVS) demonstrated similar brain activity to healthy conscious individuals according to Zenit news. Under the leadership of neuroscientist Dr. Adrian Owen, the team of scientists from Cambridge University and the Belgian University of Liège applied MRI technology to discover that the brain activity of a PVS patient indicated she was “consciously aware of herself and her surroundings.” In their experiment, the researchers gave oral commands to a 23-year-old comatose Englishwoman,...

We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? ...For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his...

We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his...

Advanced brain scanning uncovered startling signs of awareness in a woman in a vegetative state, British scientists reported Thursday — a finding that complicates one of medicine's ethical minefields. ...... Owen and colleagues contend their fMRI experiment showed the car-crash victim had some preserved conscious awareness despite her vegetative state. How could they tell? First, they checked that she could process speech. Upon being told "there was milk and sugar in the coffee," the fMRI showed brain regions reacting the same in the woman and in healthy volunteers. Then came the big test. Owen told the woman to perform a...

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....

LifeNews.com Note: David Reardon is the director of the Illinois-based Elliot Institute.The odds of recovery from brain injuries and vegetative states may be dramatically improved simply by restoring normal brain temperatures, according to a new medical theory published in the August issue of Medical Science Monitor.The study was inspired by the case of 53-year-old woman who suffered a heart attack and oxygen deprivation of the brain. In the course of a few days she slipped from consciousness to coma and then to a vegetative state. For the following thirty-one months she was receiving oxygen through a tube in her trachea.But...

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo says news about a man in a coma for 20 years who awoke from it and regained his speech and movement capabilities shows the limitations of diagnosing a permanent vegetative state. Doctors said Terry Wallis was PVS, but he was actually in a minimally conscious state similar to Terri.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...

Responding to reports of a drug that can temporarily revive people diagnosed in a permanent vegetative state, the foundation run by the family of Terri Schiavo is calling for a moratorium on removal of care for people in such a condition. The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation points out South African researchers claim Zolpidem, used to treat insomnia, appears to be effective in restoring some brain function to patients previously determined to be in a persistent vegetative state, or PVS. The researchers examined the effects on three patients of using the drug for up to six years and found all "were...

Can Ambien Wake Up PVS Patients? The Guardian gives credence to a case report concerning three patients purportedly diagnosed in PVS for more than three years who were "aroused transiently every morning after zolpidem," a sleeping pill. That would be Ambien. The report, by Clauss and Nel, of Royal Surrey County Hospital and of Family Practice of Pollack Park South Africa, was published in this month's issue of Neurorehabilitation. There are 26 million annual prescriptions for Ambien, most of which are probably not to patients in a persistent vegetative state. Recall that Ambien is oft reported to cause odd behavior...

SPRINGS, South Africa, May 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – South African researchers have discovered a medication that temporarily arouses patients from a permanent vegetative state.Scientists Ralf Clauss, now practicing nuclear medicine in the UK, and Wally Nel, in family practice in South Africa, found that Zolpidem, an insomnia drug, effectively restored consciousness to three individuals who were all in permanent vegetative states for at least three years before commencing the trial. After administering the drug, which the doctors have been doing every morning for three years, the three individuals all “wake up” to varying degrees, answer simple questions and engage...

The case of Teri Schiavo garnered a massive amount of national attention. Opinions varied across the country and across the political spectrum. I was one who was torn: I could not conceive of allowing my family to go through the pain and emotional conflict that would accompany caring for me in such a state. Neither could I conceive of ending care for someone such as my wife were the decision left in my hands regarding her fate. If even the slightest glimmer of hope remains available I cannot forsee 'letting her go'. Today I had the pleasure of sitting down...

Schiavo Autopsy Leaves Most Important Questions Unanswered For more information: Diane Coleman or Stephen Drake (708) 209-1500 exts. 11 & 29 708-420-0539 (cell) Forest Park, IL, June 15, 2005 -- Today's release of findings in the autopsy of Terri Schiavo leave the central issues in her life and death unanswered, says a national disability rights group. For example, contrary to articles stating the autopsy report "supported" the diagnosis of "persistent vegetative state (PVS)," a neuropathology expert today was careful to say that PVS is a clinical diagnosis rather than a pathological one. He added that nothing in the autopsy was...

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/odysseys/Carrots_Dont_Cry.asp Carrots Don't Cry by Rachel Ginsberg Doctors said that Marsi Tabak would remain in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of her life. With tireless dedication and a warehouse of faith, her husband proved them wrong. "True redemption is the freedom from preconceived notions and breaking out of the bonds of hopelessness, knowing that the Almighty is with you and making miracles for you all the time," says Dr. Yacov Tabak. He should know. Seven years ago his wife, Marsi, suffered prolonged oxygen deprivation after a heart attack and was given a grim diagnosis: persistent vegetative state (PVS)....

‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Tracy Gaskill shows major signs of recovery after critical accident in 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By FOSS FARRAR, Arkansas City Traveler For nearly three years, Don and Stella Gaskill had hoped their severely injured granddaughter would talk again. Just recently, their prayers were answered. On Sept. 3, 2002, Tracy Gaskill suffered critical internal and head injuries when her pickup overturned on its top. Doctors told her relatives that night that she probably would die by noon the next day, Don Gaskill said this morning. “That accident scared us to death,” said Gaskill, who lives in rural Winfield. Tracy...

Doctor prescribed drug cocktail to stimulate man's brain May 5, 2005 BY CAROLYN THOMPSON BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A brain-injured firefighter who started speaking after almost a decade of near-total silence has had moments of clarity but nothing as dramatic as that first long conversation Saturday, his wife said Wednesday. But she and his doctor remain hopeful. Don Herbert's startling improvment came three months after his medication was changed. Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, went without oxygen for several minutes after being trapped under a collapsed roof while fighting a house fire in December 1995. He spent 2-1/2 months in...

RUSH: I have to read you an e-mail that I got last night in the main e-mail account, Rush@eibnet.com. Hello, Rush, my name is Patrick Britzalaro. I am currently a battalion chief with the Buffalo fire department and up until April of 2003 I was the safety battalion chief for the Buffalo fire department. I'm very familiar with the fire that Don Herbert was severely injured in. I can tell you that firefighter Herbert was literally buried alive with hundreds of pounds of roofing debris when the flaming roof gave away. In addition to this, firefighter Herbert's only air supply,...

A husband accused of the attempted murder of his wife, who now lies in a coma, has argued that turning off her life support would go against her religious beliefs. Joe Korp was charged after his wife Maria was found left for dead in the boot of her car in Melbourne on February 13. She has been in a coma in The Alfred hospital ever since. If Mrs Korp's life support is removed and she dies, charges against her husband could be upgraded to murder. But yesterday a lawyer for Joe Korp told a tribunal that Maria Korp was a...

Timing is everything, and many in Western Springs are wondering why the suburb approved the clearing of about 45 oak trees at a golf course -- some of them 200 years old -- just three days after the village president lost his seat to a supporter of a group trying to block development on the course until its soil can be tested for contamination.Newly elected Village President Jack Lynch, who defeated John Kravcik on Tuesday, said he welcomes the construction of a 338-home development at the Timber Trails golf course. But when the property was annexed by the village three...

”For MEDICAL and LEGAL purposes, partial brain “impairment,” MUST be distinguished from complete and irreversible loss of brain functions or “WHOLE BRAIN DEATH.”

Countering "The Right to Die" The following excerpts are from Attorney James Bopp's keynote address to the Christian Life Resources convention on October 14, 1989. His points are still worthy of the reader's consideration. More than a majority of the states in the United States have had what we call the "right to die" cases -- cases brought where a third party is trying to cause the death of another, usually by court ordered starvation and dehydration of the patient. These patients are [normally] ones that have suffered some injury or illness that has resulted in them having a diminished...

I'm sick and tired of all the whining and flailing about! I just can't take it anymore! You wanted it, fine - here's MY opus:

Terri Schiavo is not the first innocent victim of murder sanctioned by judicial fiat, although the heroic efforts of her parents alerted the world about her heartbreaking death sentence. Almost four decades ago, the fallacious concept of "brain death" was introduced to pry open the legal doors to the killing of another group of unnoticed innocents — people who agree to donate their vital organs at death. People are encouraged to consent in writing to allow another person to benefit from their vital organs, such as the heart or liver, after they die. Potential donors overcome their discomfort about the...

Marylander Kept Alive For Nearly 20 Years Through Feeding Tube BALTIMORE -- A Maryland case involving eerily similar circumstances to the case of Florida's Terri Schiavo led to changes in state laws. Ronald Mack was kept alive for nearly 20 years through a feeding tube. As in the Schiavo case, his spouse fought to let him die while his family fought to keep him alive, WBAL-TV 11 News reporter Kate Amara reported. Mack was newly married: a healthy, athletic father of two. But just after getting out of boot camp in 1983, the 20-year-old was involved in a car accident,...

Top Neurologist's Report on Terri Released NewsMax.com Wires Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Here is a comprehensive report by Dr. William Hammesfahr, a world-reknowned neurologist, on Terri Schiavo's condition as of September 12, 2002: Re: Terri Schiavo Story Continues Below I was asked to examine Terri Schiavo per the request of the Second District Court of Appeal. They requested that current information about her present medical condition be obtained. They also requested that an evaluation be performed to ascertain treatment options. HPI: Ms Schiavo was in her usual state of good health until 2/25/90, when her husband reported that he was...

The diagnosis of the permanent vegetative state is primarily clinical, with repeated neurological examination necessary over a period of time to establish absence of cognitive functions and irreversibility. Laboratory studies may be useful and confirmatory in some cases. For example, EEGs will show severe background slowing. When monitored over a few years, CT scans and MRIs will show progressive cerebral cortical atrophy. While the degree of cerebral cortical atrophy does not necessarily correlate with the complete loss of cerebral cortical functions, it does, however, help to confirm that the underlying process, given the severity of destruction seen on these neuroimaging...

<p>I watch nourishment flowing into a slim tube that runs through a neat, round, surgically created orifice in Ms Schiavo's abdomen, and I'm almost envious. What effortless intake! Due to a congenital neuro-muscular disease, I am having trouble swallowing, and it's a constant struggle to get by mouth the calories my skinny body needs. For whatever reason, I'm still trying, but I know a tube is in my future. So, possibly, is speechlessness. That's a scary thought. If I couldn't speak for myself, would I want to die? If I become uncommunicative, a passive object of other people's care, should I hope my brain goes soft and leaves me in peace?</p>

A federally funded watchdog group is investigating the recent deaths of four disabled Floridians amid an aggressive campaign by the state to cut millions of dollars from programs that provide medical care for disabled people in community settings. Saturday, March 26, 2005 (Herald.com)

First, this case has boiled down to Michael Schiavo's testimony that it was Terri Schiavo's wish not to be put on life-prolonging technologies, including feeding tubes. He and his attorney said Terri made it clear years ago that she would not want to live in such a condition -- even though she never made a living will. They said she once made the comment to her best friend after seeing a movie in which a character was in such a state. "She said, 'No tubes for me,' " Michael Schiavo said. Her feeding tube was inserted on February 25, 1990....