Permanent coma woman amazes doctors with remarkable awareness

[Herman Munster]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=404129&in_page_id=1770

Scientists have made a momentous discovery of a patient trapped in a vegetative state who understands what is going on around them.
Doctors have found a British woman who has been unconscious for a year after a road accident can actually communicate through her thoughts.

Using brain scans they discovered the 23-year-old can imagine playing tennis in her head when she was told to by doctors. Lead researcher Dr Adrian Owen said: "These are startling results. They confirm that, despite the diagnosis of a vegetative state, this patient retained the ability to understand spoken commands and to respond to them through her brain activity."

The finding that someone who appears totally unconscious can react in this way has shocked the medical community who described it as 'spectacular' and 'remarkable'.

[Gman]

1. Please don't tell the freepers at FR about this

they'll start going off about Terri Schiavo again.

[snowbear]

2. The Daily Mail is a wacky site.. Have U ever looked at the stories there?

They are VERY, VERY loooonie!

(They have fun there though!)

[BattyDem]

5. Thanks for the tip. That explains the story ... LOL!

:rofl:

[BattyDem]

3. How do they know ...

she was able to imagine playing tennis? I understand that they can see brain activity with the scans, but how can they possibly know what the woman was actually imagining and/or what was causing the brain activity? :shrug: Her brain seems to be reacting to sound, which is wonderful, but there's no way to know what she's thinking! :crazy:

[snowbear]

8. It's the type of stories they create there..

Some of the news sites list "Daily Mail" under the WACKO "Way out there" news sites.

[BattyDem]

11. Thanks for the info

I saw your other post and then it all made sense. :D

[Marie26]

29. This was on BBC news too.

It's a real study.

[ContraBass Black]

15. They can tell because the brain scan result looks like this.

[terminal_concept]

18. Have you been saving that image

just for this thread?No really,good use of sarcasm.

[Lindacooks]

21. Well, you owe me a new keyboard!

Pepsi all over it.

LOL!

[VTMechEngr]

23. Heh.

Good one.

[Minimus]

27. Too funny! Thanks. I needed that laugh.

[BattyDem]

28. ROFLMAO!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. If it's not explained in the other links

they had a story on this on British TV last night; they showed that her brain scan showed the same areas of activity as a 'control' conscious person also asked to imagine playing tennis; and the same was shown when they were asked to imagine moving through the rooms in their house (that is, each subject showed different areas of activity from the tennis example, but the same as each other).

[walldude]

4. How could they know she's imagining playing Tennis

from a brain scan? Maybe she's playing ping pong, or Tetris.... this reeks of bullshit. Especially when you click on the article and there is a picture of Schiavo there...

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

6. Perhaps they should read Johnny Got His Gun

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067277/

[Herman Munster]

9. i got it from google news

There are 190 other sources with this story.

Take your pick.

http://news.google.com/?ncl=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/health/07cnd-brain.html%3Fhp%26ex%3D1157688000%26en%3D9ce8b8e9db2cd104%26ei%3D5094%26partner%3Dhomepage&hl=en

[snowbear]

10. I'm just telling you about the one you quoted...

"The Daily Mail".. I'm sure the other 190 sites vary..

[RamboLiberal]

16. It's also in the NY Times and Washington Post

eom

[BattyDem]

12. You're right ... it appears to be legitimate ...

which is terrifying! Imagine being trapped in your own body like that! :scared:

[uppityperson]

7. There are different levels of brain injury.

I wonder how they know what she is imagining? I can understand being able to electrically tell brain wave activity, but don't know how they can tell. I hope she is able to come out of her coma. "The case was also seized on by right to life campaigners as evidence of why doctors should never give up hope that a brain-damaged patient could recover." There are all sorts of levels and intensities of brain injury, as there are leg injuries. You should never give up hope someone with an amputated leg will spontaneously grow another leg and walk.

A nitpicking about that news website "How Persistent Vegetative State is different to a coma" is poor grammar. A second nitpicking to that website, why the hell do you have a picture of Terry Schiavo? Why not the woman you are reporting on? Play politics much?

Thanks for the article, but the way it is presented is irritating. I hope she is able to recover, and that somehow someday medicine/science is able to figure out how to help cns recover.

[BattyDem]

13. WSJ has a good article on it

It's not presented in a "nutty" way - it's really very interesting. :-) And the doctors make it clear that this is just ONE case and it does not mean that all patients in a vegetative state have brain function.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115766990059456911-mhfHI8EbcZBcwjo0DgYYd_G8kbA_20061007.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

[Herman Munster]

14. this quote is very creepy

Although the woman fits the diagnosis of being in a vegetative state, her brain activity raises the intriguing (or disturbing) possibility that there is a fully conscious being locked in that unresponsive body after all.
...

Can you imagine this? How horrible for anyone to endur this. Basically, they would be like in a prison of their own mind.

[ronnie624]

17. "One" by METALLICA.

I hope no one minds if I post this ONE ===
I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up I can not see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God,wake me

Back in the womb its much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can't look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I'll live
Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God,wake me

Now the world is gone I'm just one
Oh God, help me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, help me

Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell

Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell


I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up I can not see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God,wake me

I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up I can not see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God,wake me

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Please God,wake
Nah na-nana-nah nah nanah
Nah nanah now!

Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell

Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[BattyDem]

30. That freaked me out, too!

That would be a living hell! :scared:

[magellan]

22. How is it poor grammar?

If you're talking about the "to" in "How Persistent Vegetative State is different to a coma", that's correct British grammar. Unlike Americans the Brits rarely say "different from", they say "different to".

[uppityperson]

24. thanks, that is what I meant, didn't know that. Thanks for explaining

poor grammar and misspelling in media bother me, thanks for the explanation. signed, obsessiveperson

[pitohui]

19. what's remarkable about it?

so they will use this to justify more young people kept on machines, unable to move or think or even watch freakin' teevee, for another 20 years as is being done to one of my husband's college friends

a persistent vegetative state, correctly diagnosed, means that part of the brain is destroyed that will ever allow the person to be conscious again

they are kept on these machines solely for profit and to milk the insurance company and the family of their last dollar

well isn't that nice, when you're completely helpless, some craphead can order you to imagine tennis games in your head, ain't that special?

there seems to be no limit to human cruelty

we wouldn't do this to a dog but we'd do it a 23 year old human being

[uppityperson]

20. it is not funny at all, but your post is really something.

I hadn't thought of that, ordering someone to play tennis in their head, now do this, now do that. Ultimate control.

[Avalux]

25. If her brain is functioning she's not in a vegetative state.

Obviously they can measure this woman's brain waves, so she isn't "brain dead". For whatever reason, the link between her brain and physiological functions isn't working properly; she's in a coma.

There's a big difference between this and a persistent vegetative state where the brain shows no activity and there's no chance for recovery (like Terry Schiavo).

[Odin2005]

31. They are confusing a persistant coma with PVS.

Terri Schiavo's brain was basically mush, that's not true with the women here, whose brain is apprently still functional enough for the women to know what tennis is and what how you need to move to play it. They could tell she was thinking about tennis because her brain scan matched a normal person thinging about the same thing, so I'm assuming both had the same patters in thier motor cortex.