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Smartaleck, I agree. Marmema, I was a bit hasty and absolute in a previous declaration. Your quoted articles do not really apply to the Schiavo situation, though (the first is about misdiagnosis, the second is about traumatic VS, and the third I couldn't find to check on, but applies to small children, not adults, who have much less plastic brains).

This is what the best review article I could find (from the NEJM, and reviewing hundreds of case studies in the literature) on the subject had to say:

Verified and Unverified Late Recovery

Few patients in a persistent vegetative state have undergone a verified recovery of consciousness more than 12 months after a traumatic injury or more than 3 months after a nontraumatic injury. One patient recovered 30 months after a traumatic brain injury; four patients recovered 8 to 22 months after a hypoxic-ischemic or cerebrovascular injury. An additional six patients, described in the study by the Traumatic Coma Data Bank, were reported to have recovered consciousness beginning one to three years after injury. Further investigation of these six patients suggests that only half recovered awareness after one year; one was moderately disabled, and the others had severe disabilities. Two recent studies in adults and children have also reported that a few patients with traumatic and nontraumatic injuries recovered consciousness after the expected intervals. The task force knows of no other cases of verified late recovery.

Several reports in the popular media have described dramatic recovery from a persistent vegetative state. In most reports, recovery of consciousness and function occurred within the time frames noted above. Unusual cases in the medical literature or popular media are poorly documented, the nature of the patients' neurologic condition is unclear, or the timing of the entry into the vegetative state is extremely atypical. A tabular summary of these cases is available from the task force. Several of these reports have been investigated by members of the task force, and it appears likely that, although the patients were not directly examined, a late recovery of consciousness did occur. The total number of such patients is extremely small, however, considering the estimated prevalence of the persistent vegetative state, and all were apparently left with severe disability.

Probability of Recovery

On the basis of the data in the series noted above, we have estimated the probability of recovery of consciousness in adults and children who were in a vegetative state one month after an acute traumatic or nontraumatic injury. The outcome probability at 12 months was determined in patients who remained in a vegetative state at 3 months and at 6 months. In addition, the probability of functional recovery was determined for two possible outcomes: good recovery or recovery with moderate disability, and recovery with severe disability. On the basis of these probabilities, a persistent vegetative state can be judged to be permanent 12 months after a traumatic injury in adults and children; recovery after this time is exceedingly rare and almost always involves a severe disability. In adults and children with nontraumatic injuries, a persistent vegetative state can be considered to be permanent after three months; recovery does occur, but it is rare and at best associated with moderate or severe disability.

And your opinion is from related experience, reading on the internet....what?

Your quoted articles do not really apply to the Schiavo situation

Agreed. However you simply asked for instances of recovery.

"Few patients in a persistent vegetative state have undergone a verified recovery of consciousness more than 12 months"

I couldn't find it, but another article I read was similar to yours and my previous. In short, if not in 12 months the chances are zip, especially so when it comes to oxygen deprvation, if I have to summarize.

Accordingly, the diagnosis of PVS for Teri was correct and is born out in the autopsy. IMHO

So, is it your position that those who have an illness from which they won't recover, should be dehydrated to death?

People who won't recover from Parkinson's, MS, Down's Syndrome, stroke, etc. should just be killed? Why stop there, why don't we just kill anyone with any kind of chronic disease, like high blood pressure?

The point about Terri was that her real family loved her as she was and wanted to take care of her, and instead of allowing that, her husband was given assistance by the US courts, to kill her. There is MUCH MORE than reasonable doubt about Terri's wishes. So if we don't know what someone would have wanted, we should assume, she wanted to be killed brutally by dehydration?