View Full Forums : Fuel for the Terri Schiavo fire


Tudamorf
09-09-2006, 12:40 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060908/ap_on_he_me/vegetative_brain_8WASHINGTON - 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.

The work is sure to elicit pleas from families desperate to know if loved ones deemed beyond medical help have brain activity that doctors don't suspect. "Can he or she hear and understand me?" is a universal question.

The woman was injured in a car crash. By the time Owen scanned her brain five months later, she had been pronounced in a vegetative state — physically unresponsive to a battery of tests. A small percentage of people make some recovery after spending a short period in a vegetative state.

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 mental task — to imagine herself playing tennis and walking through her house. Motor-control regions of her brain lit up like they did in the healthy people he compared with her.

"There is no other explanation for this than that she has intentionally decided to involve herself in the study and do what we asked when we asked," Owen said in an interview.

Other scientists say that's not clear-cut.

The results are "not totally convincing of consciousness," neuroscientist Lionel Naccache of INSERM, France's national science institute, wrote in a review in Science. He cautioned that the woman's injuries weren't as massive as those of most vegetative-state patients.

Columbia's Hirsch said the woman is not conscious. But, "it tells me that this patient's brain is operating the essential elements for consciousness. The machinery is there and operating," she said.It's definitely interesting, but I still believe vegetative-state patients should be allowed to die in peace, if that's what they (or their closest relative) wish.

ToKu
09-09-2006, 01:41 AM
It was BS like that event that made me start being VERY specific about "just kill me situations." I dont trust politicians NOT to step in and do something because they think they may know what my feelings are, jsut to boost thier ratings.

Madie of Wind Riders
09-09-2006, 06:02 AM
Doesn't this make it even worse then? I mean, if I had consciousness and knew that I was unable to communicate, unable to move, unable to eat, unable to do anything for myself... I would be suicidal - yet unable to do anything about it.

What kind of life would that be? Should my family keep me alive because they *think* that I might be able to understand what they are saying... sometimes?

I am not sure that you can really measure consciousness... sure they can see parts of your brain "light up" when given pictures or verbals cues... but what does that really mean? Is that just the remnants of your synapses working they way they were supposed to? Or does it mean you understand what is happening?

Jinjre
09-09-2006, 09:53 AM
My biggest fear is to be in an accident, then be trapped inside my own head with no way of communicating. I'd rather be dead. I don't care what the MRI says.

My living trust is in my sister in law's hands. She's been given instructions to not make me live in a state that I wouldn't have my dog live in. I wouldn't have my dog lie on the floor while I force fed him and IV fluid'ed him simply because his heart still beat. No thanks. Not for me.

Panamah
09-09-2006, 12:04 PM
I think the MRI can always solve the question of whether someone is in a truely vegetative state or not. This news lead me to speculate on ways that someone could communicate. If you could somehow harness up their brain waves to control a keyboard or something.

Yes, I'd rather not be alive than live like that.

Aidon
09-09-2006, 12:57 PM
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

One by Metallica :devil:

Fyyr Lu'Storm
09-09-2006, 04:32 PM
Thanks Aidon.

That was the first thing that went through my head when I read this.


Actually what really went through my head was from the video at the end.


S
O
S

P
L
E
A
S
E

K
I
L
L

M
E

Over and over again.

Greylocke
09-09-2006, 10:44 PM
What little family I have left knows, if I can't live on my own means, pull the plug. Everyone should set up a health proxy and have a living will. If not, you leave it up for the government to turn your passing into a circus side show.