Posted on 09/07/2006 2:16:04 PM PDT by TheDon
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.
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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.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Check this out!
You fergot the /sarc.
Terri Schiavo could not be reached for comment.
For people who have justified the killing of innocents for convenience, this won't pose any additional problems.....
ping...
I don't understand why they think this is new. Perhaps because vegetative and coma aren't considered the same. My grandmother was in a coma back in the '80s and the first thing they told us was to watch what we said in her room because coma patients can hear what you say.
It should, and I hope it does. Soon. It's about time. But as of yet, it won't really cause any problems. They will just insist the vegetative don't have any awareness and leave them to die for convenience sake. At least, that's the plan as they're running it now.
Sometimes good news can make you sad.
Jeez, it's almost as if someone expects us to believe that all of human life has value or something.
That's exactly my reaction. I always assumed this without the reports. It seems intuitive.
If there is conscious awareness, then it is certainly not a vegetative state to begin with. A person can't exist in both states simultaneously.
They also mentioned Schiavo, and ended on a err on the side of life point.
You WILL want this one!
In the few hours before my mom died, we were told she was in a coma and couldn't hear us. I got really close to her and said, "Mom, I love you." She was intubated, but crudely moved her mouth as if to respond "I love you." I told her if she could hear me to squeeze my hand and her hand moved ever so slightly. The nurse said it was just reflex. TWO reflexes back to back in response to something I said? I never believed Mom didn't know what was going on around her.
It seems to me that, given this knowledge, the absolute minimum hospitals should do for people in "vegetative" states or comas (besides, of course, having the family speak with them and spend time with them, etc.) is to leave a TV or radio on in the hospital room so the person at least has some outside stimulation. If the patient in this test was able to hear and respond, via brainwaves, to commands then can you imagine how lonely, boring and maddening it must be to be alone in a silent room with virtually no stimulation all day, and unable to communicate?
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PING!
Her brain registers activity. The same activity that causes consciousness in every other brain. So how does Joy Hirsch know that the same brain activity which registers consciousness in her own brain, doesn't register consciousness in the patient's brain? I wonder if George Felos taught her how to read minds.
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