Patient in “Vegetative State” for 16 Years May Have Been Aware The Whole Time

Life News ^ | 9/16/14 | Wesley J. Smith

[wagglebee]

As regular readers of this blog know, I loathe the V-word used for human beings instead of peas.

So, why did I deploy it in my headline? Because another case of a supposedly unconscious man, found to be actually aware, has apparently been discovered–and many would have denigrated him as nothing but a V before he went into the scanning machine.

From the Nature News story:

A dozen volunteers watched Alfred Hitchcock for science while lying motionless in a magnetic-resonance scanner. Another participant, a man who has lived in a vegetative state for 16 years, showed brain activity remarkably similar to that of the healthy volunteers — suggesting that plot structure had an impact on him. The study is published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

What we don’t know about the brain, the mind, and their workings should make us humble about presuming to dismiss anyone as unconscious and unaware.

And it should make us loathe to dehydrate these helpless people to death.

P.S. The Nature reporter used the term “brain dead” as a synonym for diagnosed as unconscious. They are not the same thing! A science publication writer should know better.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.

[wagglebee]

Thankfully this man has a loving family that doesn't want to kill him for the sake of "convenience."

[wagglebee]

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[wagglebee]

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[wagglebee]

[A CA Guy]

It is nice they have him home and are taking care of him for 16 years.

[Slyfox]

You know, the brain can operate perfectly, but if the muscles used in communication are not working properly then that patient is doomed because he can't talk for himself.

That scientist who has to communicate using a computer is pretty dang lucky. (His name escapes me)

If only Terri Schindler had the use of a computer to communicate she may not have been starved to death.

[GeronL]

bump!

[Repeal The 17th]

Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Bang, You’re Dead
Aired Sunday 9:30 PM Oct 17, 1961
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6fj_8FHg5M
-

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

?Stephen Hawking

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Her name was Terri Schiavo.

[soycd]

>found to be actually aware for 16 years

I can’t think of a worse torture than to be aware for so long without any means of communication or other pleasures in life.

Who would want to be an intelligent vegetable?

[punknpuss]

I would sue any doctor or nurse who would use that term around a loved one of mine. To say it’s dehumanizing is an understatement. Imagine hearing someone say that and not being able to defend one’s self. (Especially in this day and time when you know it’s a death sentence.)

[Smashing_Pundit]

The more we think we know about the brain and the nature of consciousness, the more wrong we are. Kudos to Wesley Smith for being such a fighter for life.

[Ouderkirk]

Actually, wasn’t her name Terry Schindler ?....Schiavo was the name of her killer...oops, I mean husband.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

I just checked and yes, her maiden name was Schindler. Her married name was Schiavo.

[reaganaut1]

I would not want to be conscious but helpless for 16 years.
That sounds worse than death to me.

[wagglebee]

Schiavo was the last name of her adulterous "husband." Interestingly enough, Schiavo means SLAVE in Italian.

[Pajamajan]

I once heard a nurse say she was going to "the garden". I asked her what that was.

She said it was a reference to the ICU and the non-responsive patients there.

I was a little shocked to hear that. I thought about the people -that they were somebody's mom, dad, or grandma, or grandpa.

It is cold hearted to refer to anyone with such a dehumanizing term as "vegetable".

[ladyjane]

I might cut the ICU nurse some slack. Medical professionals have to deal with heart breaking situations. Taking care of a chid who is dying or performing an autopsy must be incredibly difficult. The coping mechanisms they use makes it easier for anyone who is a caring human being.

[Wuli]

There was a case in Arizona where a woman had been a coma and on life support for 15 years. Her daughter had grown up, married and started a family during that time, and still visited her mother in the hospital nearly every day.

Noticing that a particular anti-viral drug had a neurological side effect on some patients where certain neurological activity went “off the charts”, the woman’s doctors received approval to try the drug on the 15-year-long coma patient.

The woman “woke up” and when her daughter arrived and began conversing with her mom, the woman told her daughter she had always heard her daughter talking to her on her visits.