[gardencatz]

How is it that the esteemed Dr. Cranford can even make such a diagnosis when he didn't even perform tests considered essential to an accurate diagnosis? Where is the MRI? Where is the PET? Go to the library and check ANY first year neurology textbook and look up what's required to diagnose PVS. When you consider that Cranford previously MISdiagnosed someone as PVS who subsequently made a FULL recovery, don't you think he'd want to make sure he performed the ALL the tests necessary for an accurate diagnosis? The 2 tests that were performed (YEARS BEFORE), were the most superficial and least accurate in determining PVS. Maybe Terri was PVS, maybe she wasn't. The FACT is, we just don't know. It seems that if we're going to order someone's death, we should, at minimum, make sure STANDARD neurological tests are performed. There is statement after statement from doctors who say a diagnosis couldn't be made without further testing, but we're supposed to accept the word of a doctor who's life work is going around the country and testifying that patients are PVS. So far, he's found 100% of the patients he's diagnosed to be PVS, including the one that made a full recovery...sounds like an "expert" to me.

Cindie

[Gondring]

Go to the library and check ANY first year neurology textbook and look up what's required to diagnose PVS.

Hmmm...why not go and see what the NIH says...and it has nothing to do with MRI, PET, etc. It's mainly clinically based, and many neurologists have pointed out that the CT and clinical results were SO conclusive, an MRI or PET was not necessary. Also, note that it was the Schindlers who didn't want the PET scan. Plus, as Dr. Cranford said, a proper PET scan isn't easy to get...especially from a woman's body that has no cognitive control...just random motions and brief, non-cognitive responses to stimuli.

The National Institutes of Health defines a persistent vegetative state (PVS) as a syndrome with the following diagnostic criteria:

• No evidence of awareness of self
• No evidence of awareness of environment
• No ability to interact with others
• No evidence of sustained, reproducible, purposeful, or voluntary responses to visual, auditory, tactile, or noxious stimuli
• No evidence of language comprehension or expression
• Normal sleep patterns
• Sufficient hypothalmic function for survival with nursing care
• Sufficient autonomic function for survival with nursing care
• Bowel and bladder incontinence
• Variably preserved cranial-nerve reflexes
• Variably preserved spinal reflexes
• All symptoms last longer than a few weeks

Individuals in this state may sometimes exhibit response to stimuli. Patients may open their eyes in response to light. They may even ocacasionally grimace, cry, or laugh. As the definition requires, none of these responses can be sustained, reproducable, purposeful or seemingly voluntary.