Posted on 06/19/2005 6:04:50 PM PDT by wagglebee
Dr. William Hammesfahr, nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work in Medicine, has been recognized by agents for Medicare, the federal government, and others for new approaches to helping the brain injured.
Dr. Hammesfahr has been identified in helping patients with chronic brain injuries from many causes actually leave long term disability, and return to work.
Dr. Hammesfahr was identified the first physician to restore deficits caused by stroke.
Dr. Hammesfahr has released the following statement in response to the autopsy report on Terri Schindler Schiavo:
We have seen a lot on the autopsy of Terri Schindler Schiavo in recent days, that I feel needs to be addressed. To ignore these comments will allow future 'Terri Schiavo's' to die needlessly after the wishes of clinicians and family are ignored.
Considering that there were so many physicians and therapists who were willing to step forward to treat Terri Schiavo, from university based practitioners to those in private practice, it clearly shows that the mainstream medical community across the board, those involved in treating patients, knew that they could help Terri.
The record must be set straight. As we noted in the press, there was no heart attack, or evident reason for this to have happened (and certainly not of Terri's making).
Unlike the constant drumbeat from the husband, his attorneys, and his doctors, the brain tissue was not dissolved, with a head of just spinal fluid. In fact, large areas were "relatively preserved."
The purpose of the therapies offered by so many, from major universities, brain injury centers, and from private practice physicians, is to improve and restore quality of life, and function, which the mainstream medical community clearly tried to get to her.
I have had a chance to look at Dr. Nelson's analysis of the brain tissue, and essentially, as a clinician, these are my thoughts.
The autopsy results confirmed my opinion and Dr. Maxfield's opinions, that the frontal areas of the brains, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact. To use Dr. Nelson's words, "relatively preserved." In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape. The Spect scan confirmed these areas were functional and not scar tissue, and that was apparently also confirmed on Dr. Nelson's review of the slides. Dr. Maxfield's estimates of retained brain weight were apparently accurate, although there may have been some loss of brain weight due to the last two weeks of dehydration.
Dr. Maxfield and myself both emphasized that she was a woman trapped in her body, similar to a child with cerebral palsy, and that was born out by the autopsy, showing greater injury in the motor and visual centers of the brain. Obviously, the pathologists comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality, and thus his assessment must represent sampling error. The videotapes clearly showed her seeing, and even Dr. Cranfoed, for the husband, commented to her that, when she could see the balloon, she could follow it with her eyes as per his request.
That she could not swallow was obviously not borne out by the reality that she was swallowing her saliva, about 1.5 liters per day of liquid, and the clinical swallowing tests done by Dr. Young and Dr. Carpenter. Thus, there appears to be some limitations to the clinical accuracy of an autopsy in evaluating function.
With respect to the issue of trauma, that certainly does not appear to be answered adequately. Some of the types of trauma that are suspected were not adequately evaluated in this assessment. Interestingly, both myself and at least one neurologist for the husband testified to the presence of neck injuries. The issue of a forensic evaluation for trauma, is highly specialized. Hence the wish of the family to have observers which was refused by the examiner.
Ultimately, based on the clinical evidence and the autopsy results, an aware woman was killed.
s/Dr. W. Hammesfahr
[Dr. Hammesfahr was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1999. The Nomination was for work started in 1994. In 2000, this work resulted in approval for the first patent in history granted for the treatment of neurological diseases including coma, stroke, brain injury, cerebral palsy, hypoxic injuries and other neurovascular disorders with medications that restore blood flow to the brain. It was extended to treat successfully disabilities including ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia, Tourette's and Autism as well as behaviorally and emotionally disturbed children, seizures and severe migraines.]
I gave no speculative argument as to how her neck sustained the injury.
I fail to see how that is "making things up."
Considering that doctors and nurses examined Terri and never mentioned these injuries, you will have to excuse me if your saying you saw some injury to her neck was evident is not clear and convincing evidence of anything.
I saw those videos too and didn't see anything like what you saw.
And you've been told by another freeper that her neck was likely stiff due to a medical condition, not abuse.
See post #241.
Again with the faulty premise. There was nothing said about "like". There was nothing said about who can respond to whom.
So how come the autopsy found no abuse? Vast left-wing conspiracy?
Or are you more capable of making a diagnosis from an edited video than medical personnel are by examining her either before or after her death?
I don't know. I'm reading this page of comments and have never seen such gobbley gook made up stuff in my life. It's either made up charges against doctors and MS or against individual freepers who are NOT doing what they are being charged with doing.
I saw it. Did you also notice the contractures of her hands in the video? That's not due to any injury, but to the severe brain damage she suffered. The decerebration she suffered causes contractures and muscle stiffness, probably why it appeared in the videos that her neck was injured.
Dr. William Hammesfahr, nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work in Medicine
Patently false, but some people don't let facts get in the way of their agenda.
Operative word was "knew"; should have been "thought".
And "willing to step forward" should have been followed by "for the right price".
Leave the family and the lady alone. They deserve it. Stop trying to milk even more money from gullible watchers of and listeners to the MSM.
There is a wrongful death suit perking up here. I would go fo 1 Billion dollers. It's winnable, because it was a government murder.
Which is precisely why Terri had various guardian ad litems over the past few years.
Peach and/or 38.sw may know, as I do not, whether the Schindlers ever formally petitioned to become Terri's legal guardians.
Let's see her attack occurred in Feb of 1990 - he got the money from the lawsuit in 1992- sounds about right that he would have been a phony during that period of time, so much so that the Schindlers were completely taken in by him. Soon as he goot the money his true colors came through. You people amaze me no end when you defend this man.
The whole family looked like they got sucked into the big circus to me.
"Bad idea to tell MS that there was no hope (based on what the doctors said) and that he should get on with his life?"
Sure the doctors needed to tell him the truth about her recovery possibilities (which were slim IMHO). I meant it was a bad idea for the Schindler's to tell Micheal to get a new love interest..not too smart unless they assumed he would turn over her guardianship to them.
Sorry but they didn't look smart enough to think this stuff out to me.
It did not. Dr Nelson was very careful in saying " PVS is a clinical diagnosis rather than a pathological one" and "nothing in the autopsy was "inconsistent" with a PVS diagnosis". In other words, you need a live brain for diagnosis, not a dead one. It starts on Pg 17.
LOL! I knew when I posted that comment that I probably shouldn't have. I was in a mood. I'm 49 years old but not an old fart yet.
yep.
"likely stiff" are the key words.
We really don't know for certain how or why her neck was injured, or appeared to be injured do we?
I've "been told by another freeper" and that makes it so? LOL!
I never said it was due to abuse, that was your reading into my post. I never drew a conclusion as to how her neck got that way as I don't know for certain. Stop putting words into my mouth.
People can and are entitled to draw their own private conclusions, whatever they may be.
That's another reason why the autopsy had to support the decision of the courts.
Exactly.
So then why was a spouse with limited guardianship allowed to carry the weight of the hearsay testimony? (Hearsay is allowed in Florida in these cases by the way)
Before we know it, he'll be claiming he actually WON that Nobel prize.
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