New Signs of Awareness Seen In Some Brain-Injured Patients

[deek]

ok......doing some armchair research to defend my stance re Shiavo case. I am so deeply dismayed at the attitudes expressed at this forum. I had higher hopes for "progressives". I am completely floored at the expressed lack of sense of humanity here.

Granted, the findings are "more suggestive than conclusive". Isn't that enough?

ABSTRACT - New brain-imaging study suggests that thousands of brain-damaged people thought to be completely unaware may hear and register what is going on around them but be unable to respond; findings, if repeated in follow-up experiments, could have sweeping implications for how to care best for these patients; study could also have consequences for legal cases in which parties dispute mental state of unresponsive patient; study appears in journal Neurology; research shows that magnetic resonance imaging can be powerful tool to help doctors and family members determine whether person has lost all awareness or is still somewhat mentally engaged; experts warn that new research is more suggestive than conclusive, and that it does not mean that unresponsive people with brain damage are more likely to recover or that treatment is yet possible; estimated 100,000 to 300,000 people are in what is called minimally conscious state: bedridden and not able to communicate or feed or care for themselves; they typically breathe on their own (M)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0D17FF345F0C7B8CDDAB0894DD404482

[brainshrub]

1. OMG! If this is true those poor people must be in a living hell!

Imagine screaming to die, but not able to communicate how uncomfortable you are. KNOWING that you are doomed to go slowly insane.

I got shivers reading this.

Truly, if brain-damaged people are able to register what is happening to them... theirs is a fate worse than death.

[deek]

3. correct

on edit: Remind you of a "Twlight Zone" episode?

Imagine groups of people talking about how to kill you, also. Few people acknowledge the person with brain damage can actually hear what is being said in the room.

I vaguely recall something from the www.terrisfight.org site re Terri's reaction to such a conversation.

Living hell is the exact term.

Not from not being able to taste food.
Not from not being able to hold a glass.
From hearing those who are supposedly your family talking about how it would be better if you were dead...and how to do it.

How dare they.

[brainshrub]

10. If I were in that hellish-state

and I overheard my family saying that I was better of dead, I would be silently agreeing with them and wondering when they were going to pull the plug.

If I were in that hellish-state I would vehemently curse anyone who would prevent my family from killing me quickly.

[Banazir]

13. Have you ever been in that "hellish-state"?

If not, how do you know it's a "hellish-state" minus the degradation that you'd be experiencing? Lots of people make pronouncements about how they couldn't live without something, and then when it comes down to it, they can. And lots of people who've been bedridden and unresponsive for long periods of time have been able to say later that it wasn't death they wanted but respect.

[Erika]

2. Terri's cerebral cortex has become a black hole

filled with liquid. She has no cognitive ability, none at all. That part of the brain has completely atrophied.

I find it compassionate to let her shell go. It's gruesome and inhumane to try to keep the shell here when the rest has gone.

[pop goes the weasel]

5. we do not actually know that

she has "no cognitive ability." There are documented cases of people whose skulls are mostly filled with cerebrospinal fluid, yet who function at normal intelligence levels. A discussion about those cases can be found here: http://www.ial.goldthread.com/nobraindiscussion.html

As for the Schiavo case, I don't see that it matters at all whether she is in a PVS or MCS. Her parents and siblings enjoy her existence and relate to her. They want her around. They are willing to do the work to keep her comfortable--free of bed sores, fed and hydrated, properly evacuated. She does not show any signs of pain or distress such as elevated blood pressure or heart beat or inflammation. She does not have to be kept in a hospital or hospice or nursing facility. Why not let them care for her? From your point of view, she is so far gone that she won't notice anyways. So let her family enjoy her.

[BoogDoc7]

11. The issue...

Shouldn't be about Terri's parents and family's well-being and supposed happiness. It's about Terri.

[phusion]

4. What kind of state is that?

How do you know she would want to live in such a state? Even if she was aware of this, she has to know there is absolutely no chance that she will recover from it.

This is humanity coming through here. It is humanity being shown when we realize that people do not want to live in a vegetative, non-responsive, helpless state. Forever. That type of condition is inhumane.

I know I would not want to live like that.

How dare you call that inhumane.

I know there is nothing I can do to convince you otherwise, so it's probably pointless to respond to this.

[NEOBuckeye]

6. Sometimes, "life at any cost" isn't always the best answer.

Who could imagine being stuck, aware or otherwise, in such a horrible state of existence? That's not life, or living. It's not dead either, but very much like the state of being "undead" if you will.

I can't imagine how painful Terri's loss must be for her family. But look at the pictures of her before, and look at her now. Her family can't bear to let her go and is willing to cling to any faint glimmer of hope that she might still someday recover. But the sad truth is that the person they knew and loved actually passed on long ago. They must look past their own selfish hopes and do what is right for their loved one by finally letting her go.

[Banazir]

12. Where's the horribleness?

Why do you assume that it would be horrible to live... what? With a feeding tube? (Know many people who do.) Unable to speak or type? (Been there.) Unable to move? (Been there.) In severe pain without it being treated? (Been there.)

What's horrible is being abandoned, forgotten, degraded, and bored, but I oddly don't see people pushing for the death of abandoned, forgotten, degraded, and bored people unless they're also disabled.

[CindyDale]

7. IMO, it's arrogant for anyone to assume they know what Terri would want

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. I can tell you, as a nurse,

that it has been known for many years that patients in comas can and probably do, hear what is said around them. (I remember stories in nursing school about family members discussing who would get what when the patient finally died, in the presence of said patient! And if that person woke up, which sometimes happens, s/he would change the will to exclude the people who'd had the discussion.) However, my story doesn't answer the question. Do we take care of these people so they can "live" or do we let them die? And who decides? The longer they stay in these "light comas" the less likely they are to recover. If they can't feed themselves, or otherwise take care of themselves, then my feeling is to let them die. Humanely, of course! For myself, the question really is: Does their life have any purpose? Are they enjoying themselves? Are they contributing in some meaningful way? Terri Shiavo's parents are deluding themselves when they think that she will some day wake up and resume the life she had prior to her accident. It's a mess.

[deek]

9. They have no such delusions

No one is expecting Terri to "wake up and resume the life she had prior to her accident." No one is expecting her to miraculously regenerate her damaged brain.

[Banazir]

14. Why are (comparatively) able-bodied people the arbiters...

...of what constitutes living a meaningful life, what constitutes having a purpose, and what constitutes an ability to enjoy yourself?

I ask because nurses and other medical professionals routinely rate disabled people's quality of life as much lower than disabled people ourselves rate it as. And because my life has been subject to prejudices similar to yours and I know them to truly be prejudices.

[deek]

17. excellent point

Whose life is it anyway?

[DemBones DemBones]

15. Some time ago, I saw an interview with Donald Sutherland in which

he was asked to discuss the time he spent in a coma. He was filimng in an Eastern European country, as I recall, when he got sick and went into a coma. He said he heard everything that was said around him, including conversations about how he was probably going to die!

It's very sad to see people who call themselves liberals yet have no concern for the rights of the disabled. Some posters exhibit what must be called hatred for Terri and her parents, seeing Terri as worthless and her parents as deluded.

I posted in that thread in LBN but I read very little of it. It's too disgusting to see how little concern is being shown for a human being's life.

[Banazir]

16. And Rus Cooper-Dowda, too

...who had a similar story, it sounds like, to Donald Sutherland.

[DemBones DemBones]

19. And woke up and told her husband, using a communication board,

that she wanted a divorce! HE had wanted to let her die, just like Michael Schiavo wants Terri to die.

Donald Sutherland talked about how his experience affected him. He said that when his mother was in a coma and dying, he made sure that people were careful about what they said in her presence. When I heard that, I was very glad that my husband and I stayed with his mother for two hours after she was pronounced dead, talking to her, holding her hands, etc. We just felt that she might still be able to hear us. She stopped breathing a good ten minutes before her heart stopped so who knows when death really occurred? Maybe death is a continuum.

[deek]

18. Nice to see you join the dialog, DemBones

You seem to have much more respect on this board than I.

I am so sickened by the responses I have received this past year re this situation.

Where is the humanity? Where is the compassion?

If only they knew us and our loved ones as persons--OF THEIR OWN RIGHT.

I know their spewing of hatred, death, and condescension would be different.

Perhaps it is just knee-jerk reaction to the RW adoption of Terri's life-right....perhaps it is because Jeb has intervened.

What if it were Kucinich or Dean that had spoken out for Terri's right to live?

I can't involve myself in any further general discussion of Terri anymore. It sickens me further to hear such disregard of human value from people who purport to care about their fellow brothers and sisters.

They are clueless and their views are marred by their political alliances.

If they ever come after my daughter, demanding her life is not worthwhile because she does not speak nor swallow food......
they have become what the bush Nazi's have choreographed without them ever realizing.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. Thanks, though I'm not at all sure

about respect! I stand up for causes that are not too popular here so I catch a lot of flak. It's supposed to be a discussion board but a lot of people want everyone to have the same opinion about everything.

:shrug:

Added on edit, now that the dog settled down:

I'm not sure they would listen to Kucinich or Dean or anyone else about this. I think the vehemence against poor Terri Schiavo shows how far we have to go on this issue. Mainstreaming has gone on in schools for a generation, ostensibly, but it doesn't seem to have had much effect on attitudes. I don't understand it at all but it's very sad.