Where did word "vegetative" come from, anyway? That's a loaded term that devalues human life.

Brain Injury website ^ | Oct 22, 03 | Churchillbuff

[churchillbuff]

Various news reports describe Terry Schiavo as in a "vegetative" state. Is that a genuine medical term - or a contrivance of pop medicine and the media? It's a loaded word that demeans a human being by likening the human to subhuman plant life. Language is important. Hitler targeted Jews and other unwanteds by using language to that implied that they were less than human, more of the animal realm - and therefore could be eliminated without cost to conscience. Doesn't terminology like "vegetative" do the same thing, whether or not that's the intention?

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

FROM:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:ZpJ3DBLQbawJ:www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Oasis/2919/pvsdef.html+definition+vegetative&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The term "persistent vegetative state" was introduced by Jennett and Plum in a 1972 article in the journal Lancet to describe the condition of patients with severe brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of "wakefulness without awareness" (795). According to Dr. Lance Stell of the Department of Internal Medicine and a member of the Ethics Committee at Carolinas Medical Center, Jennett and Plum were particularly interested in a syndrome that seemed to have been made possible by medicine's capacities to keep patients' bodies alive (personal interview). Patients in this vegetative state have no cerebral cortical function, meaning that they are unconscious and unaware, but exhibit sleep-wake cycles with either full or partial hypothalamic and brain stem autonomic functions. A persistent vegetative state is considered to be permanent when a diagnosis of irreversibility can be established based on the fact that the chances that the patient will regain consciousness are exceedingly small (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS Part 1 1499-1501). The cerebral cortex, sometimes referred to as "gray matter," controls all emotions, sensations, and understanding that distinguishes human from subhuman life (Hoefler and Kamoie 50). Thus, when a patient is in a persistent vegetative state, only vegetative functions and reflexes persist.
The distinguishing feature of the persistent vegetative state is an irregular but cyclic state of circadian sleep and wake cycles, unaccompanied by any detectable expression of self-awareness (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS Part 1 1500). Along with maintaining autonomous functions, such as cardiovascular and renal functions, patients in a persistent vegetative state may be aroused by certain stimuli, opening their eyes if they are closed, changing their facial expressions, or even moving their limbs. Furthermore, they can grind their teeth, swallow, smile, shed tears, grunt, moan, or scream without any reason. Their heads and eyes can follow a moving object or move towards a loud sound (Zeman 796). Yet, these responses have been observed in patients in whom careful study has shown no evidence of awareness. Consistent with a persistent vegetative state is a lack of sustained visual pursuit. Although they may move their eyes, patients in a vegetative state neither fixate on a visual object nor track a moving target with their eyes (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS Part 1 1500-1501). "A circumstance where somebody could have his eyes open and not see, and not look, and not track, and not use his eyes for the purpose of gathering information about their environment...is hard for many people to understand," said Dr. Stell (personal interview). Positron-emission tomographic (PET scan) studies have shown an average of a fifty percent decrease in metabolic activity in the cerebral cortex and cerebellum of patients in a persistent vegetative state (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS Part 1 1506). Thus, although these patients may exhibit behavior that appears to be the result of conscious thought and reasoning, these behaviors are merely reflexive and do not indicate awareness.

[dandelion]

That is scary as hell. Evidently, the only thing that identifies a person as "PVS" is a doctor who wants them dead...

[dandelion]

That is scary as hell. Evidently, the only thing that identifies a person as "PVS" is a doctor who wants them dead...

[Ready4Freddy]

The description isn't specific enough for you, I take it?

[churchillbuff]

All those doctors did is assign a dehumanizing term to a particular medical condition. Likening any human, in any condition, to a "vegetable", is an abuse of language -- with a dehumanizing agenda. It's not a clinical use of words, but a polemical one.

[beaversmom]

I've noticed the lawyer in the case, like most leftists, is careful about the words he chooses. According to him it was "simply inhumane and barbaric to interrupt her death process." The other day, Pat Buchanan said on his program something to the affect of, if they are going to kill her why don't they just put a pillow over her face. Bill Press pipes up, "That would be murder Pat!". It's all very twisted.

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

You asked - "Is that a genuine medical term..."

FYI - I think the husband is scum with the distinct possibility of only being concerned with financial gain but that's entirely opinion.
For more information on PVS- http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/330/21/1499

[cajungirl]

Before this issue even arose the term "vegetative" was used for functions that include breathing, moving , sleeping and I think digesting food. In depressions, people are said to have "vegetative symptoms" referring to lack of sleep, loss of appetite, slowing of gi tract. I do not believe it is polemical nor do I believe the difference between this state and any other is whether the doc wants someone dead or not.

[Leisler]

"Where did word "vegetative" come from, anyway?"

[Gopher Broke]

The media is distorting the truth in many ways....calling Terri in a "COMA" even though this is clearly NOT TRUE!.

[TheAngryClam]

Sounds like Terri Schiavo to me.

[msmagoo]

define: vegetative

Vegetative means non-reproductive or relating to the nonsexual organs of a plant, such as root, stem and leaves.
spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/references/glossaries/science/sc-gloss-t_z.htm

Not flowering. The stage of development when a plant is producing only roots, stems and leaves, that is, the vegetative organs.
www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea/AgroModels/DBases/af/cfm/GlosV.htm

in describing microbial developmental stages, a metabolically active feeding and dividing form, as opposed to a dormant, seemingly inert, nondividing form (e.g. a bacterial cell vs. its spore).
www.asc.upenn.edu/courses/comm240/fall2002/DahliaD/glossary.html

of or relating to an activity that is passive and monotonous; "a dull vegetative lifestyle"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

used of involuntary bodily functions; "vegetative functions such as digestion or growth or circulation"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

(of reproduction) characterized by asexual processes
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

composed of vegetation or plants; "regions rich in vegetal products"; "vegetational cover"; "the decaying vegetative layer covering a forest floor"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

[msmagoo]

Euthanasia in Cases of a Persistent Vegetative State

Comment by Maynard S. Clark (2 Apr 2000):

The issue of prolonging life is a very complex one, and this issue is brought up in a number of ethical thinkers in the vegetarian movement, most notably Dr. Peter Singer at the Princeton Center for Bioethics (New Jersey). Many handicapped, senior rights, and prolife groups have picketed Singer at Princeton (and elsewhere) and even at Harvard Medical School (where I heard him several weeks ago).

As you probably know, even the diagnosis of persistent vegetative state is a difficult one and the brain injury literature is full of information on its frequent misdiagnosis.

Almost every person who has sustained a severe brain injury has had their family told by competent medical personnel that their loved one is going to die ... and in the unlikely case that "such an one" should live, s/he would be (likened unto) a "vegetable" with an unacceptable quality of life.

Despite this pessimistic diagnosis, the brain injury rehabilitation programs across the United States are full of patients, young and old, who somehow "beat the odds" and recover.

Though many have residual problems, it is not at all unusual for this traumatic event to be transformational for the patient and the family, moving them to a realization of (what some of them discern to be) a spiritual dimension of life they were previously missing. (Whether that is "religiously significant" or merely of psychological and/or psychiatric interest remains for seriously and soul-searching discussion.)

It reminds us again and again that medicine is a long way from being complete as an exact science and that life and death and the processes on which are mortal consciousness are sustained hold still more amazing mysteries beyond the categories we often try to use. Although our finitude does not in itself imply a "Wholly Other" beyond the expanse of space-time, we surely cannot prove supernatural reality to be categorically "nonexistent" nor can we deny that our finitude leaves "more" to be known (although the mere concept of "more" is not the content of the Christian message).

[cyn]

Hey, churchillbuff -- This is a great website you came across here: BIACA -- Brain Injury Association of CA

It's PACKED with Terri information!

Including this "spiffed Terri in wheelchair" photo with more of the background. Hooray!

http://www.biaca.org/news.shtml

[dirtboy]

beat me to it, heheheheh...

[cyn]

Premature post as I was checking link -- here's the real link for the terri info part -- http://www.biaca.org/news.shtml

[cyn]

Halfway down the above webpage for the BIACA is this notice that may be of interest:

Brain Injury Association of America ("BIA USA") Should be the National Leader in Advocating For Terri's Life as a Person With Brain Injury

The real shocker is: The Brain Injury Association of America Is Silent!

[CYN NOTE: I checked the BIA USA web page -- although the slogan on their opening flash page is “Creating a better future through brain injury prevention, research, education, and advocacy.” -- I did not see any Terri info or links on this site.]

Everyone here in California has looked and looked, and found exactly no public statements or in-person leadership, and nothing quoted in the TV and newspapers from BIA of America, what people also call "BIA USA." We can find nothing [emphasis mine] that BIA of America is doing to help save this brain injured young woman and help her obtain needed feeding and medical rehabilitation:

No statement, no letter, nothing on the web site of the national BIA of America at www.biausa.org has been found. No public statements or in-person leadership, no press release, no link on their web site, and nothing quoted in the TV and newspapers from the Brain Injury Association of America.

There is exactly NO indication anywhere that BIA of America policy or executives have even looked at this issue, much less taken the national leadership role that they should have done, to prevent this murder by court and husband, and to prevent the dangerous legal precedent for the future, that this torture is acceptable!

Silence is assent. Silence in the face of evil is unforgivable

We must not allow our silence to mean we give our approval of killing off the disabled, before they have had the chance for meaningful medical and cognitive brain injury rehabilitation and they can fight for themselves.

Tell the BIA of America it needs to act swiftly and Decisively to Save Persons with Brain Injuries From Starvation!

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

All's I can say is THANKS to the CA branch of the Brain Injury Association of the USA for speaking out for Terri.

I'm going to check for link to see what the Florida branch is doing for Terri.

[cyn]

lol.

Oh, NO! M M M M My Sharonnnaaaaaahhhh!

[cyn]

Here's the link for the FL branch -- http://www.biaf.org/

There's no obvious Terri info here, so I went to most-likely-to-include-Terri link -- http://www.biaf.org/legissues.html -- They're concerned about many issues, I don't see that Terri is one of them.

Will look more later. People are coming home now, and they're thinking they're gonna get something to eat :oO