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.]
The initial cat scan wouldn't show the damage because the cells and brain structures are still there. Even thought brain tissue had died due to lack of oxygen, they're still there. The bodies immune response will fire up, and the macropohages (they're cells that are part of the immune system) I mentioned before show up and remove the dead tissue. Brain tissue starts to die after around 6 minutes once a fresh supply of O2 is cut off (that can vary some with temperature - little kids that have fallen into a very cold body of water can and have gone for longer without O2, and been OK). That's about how long it takes to use up the O2 that's already present in the tissue. Getting O2 back to the brain would stop further damage, but the damage that has been done is done.
That's what I thought too. I was hoping someone would clarify this. I will email Felos' office and ask that question. They think I'm a journalist from Europe...
No, but he admitted that during the time he observed her he never saw ANY purposeful behavior. Minimally conscious and PVS border on each other. Qualified doctors can come up with different diagnoses. Given the timing of his diagnosis I would be extremely surprised if he didnt err on the side of minimally conscious. I would have been more impressed if he had been the Schindlers expert witness rather than Dr Himmelfarb (sp).
You know full well I was not talking about the victim's written decision.
That is a diversionary tactic to derail.
But, as a matter of interest. My own Mother said year after year - I do not want to live when I cannot take care of myself and so on.
Then she came to being in a nursing home totally unable to do anything for herself except sometimes eat and drink and sometimes manipulate a way for visitors to let her out so that she could go see her mother. How? By sitting her wheelchair in front of the entrance door, so that a kindly person would assume she was trying to open the door and open it for her. In fact, I caught her doing this one night when I arrived late, opened the front lobby door and there she sat in that wheelchair square in the middle of the door.
As she progressed in her dementia and weakness, I finally followed the nursing home rules to complete the Living Will for her. I asked, "Mother, since you are 85, if you suddenly had a heart attack or something would you want them to revive you and do all they could to make you well?
Her answer "Well, of course, wouldn't anyone?". And, this from a woman who hurt everytime they had to move her from her chair to the bed or back.
The point being each stage of life makes adjustments and enjoys different things than a prior stage. However, wanting to live does not taper off with time. We are adaptable and enjoy different things in different stages.
And, we had some fun times of laughter and resolved the confusion of some of her earlier actions that, if she had died before they were resolved, would have haunted me all my life. I remember those times with a smile.
Those little people are such jewels and those little sweet eyes looking up at you are absolutely precious.
I would hate to think that we take away the faith the weak have in us to the point that as they look into our eyes as we stand around their beds, they do not know whether we are there to help or we are there to kill them.
Don't like the Empire Journal? How about a libeal, Joan Didion, published by The New York Review of Books? The Case of Theresa Schiavo
The St. Petersburg Times ran a Sunday feature, "When Living Wills Fail." Letters to the editor were written. National right-to-die organizations lobbied the Florida legislature. Six months later, Felos wrote, "my client had become a cause celebre and this case the spearhead of a social movement." He was undeterred by a gubernatorial veto on legislation meant to allow the removal or refusal of feeding tubes in cases when the patient had so expressed this wish. The day after the veto, on July 4, 1989, a network news crew happened to "find" Felos at his office. "They ended up coming over for some taping," he wrote, "and there I was on the holiday news—Mrs. Browning's white knight, stalwart at his covered desk, intently crafting her plea of last hope to the [Florida] Supreme Court. Did I love it!"
The article is worth the read.
All true what you've posted.
Felos and Schiavo are predators - and Terri was their victim. I wonder how many "client-victims" Felos has and how long they actualy live while being "counseled" by him.
I'm stil waiting to find out what priest "attended" the service...
I don't know the man so why would I do that? ;)
No, it's not a diversionary tactic. You started the diversionary tactics when you moved from Terri's case to insisting that removing a feeding tube is "muder" under any circumstance.
And when you're going that far, I say it is too far. If you had made your case based on suspicion that Terri didn't want it, I could have respected it. You instead decided to make your case only by railing against a procedure that many family members choose when in a terrible, terrible situation.
What an interesting reply. You must get plenty of exercise by leaping to conclusions. Your initial was that the Me could pretty much say anything he wanted to. When it was pointed out that there were consulting physicians on the autopsy, and Xrays and all kinds of samples and slides for later examination exist, you conclude that we are saying that there is no controversy, the autopsy was conclusive (in fact, the ME stated he didn't know what the cause of the initial collapse was), everyone is agreement, and that Mrs. Schiavo's murder was entirely justified.
Congratulations. You've done a fine job of finding things that aren't there.
Thanks! :)
Dr. Cheshire says much the same thing as Father Pavone, stating Terri turned to look straight at his face when he came in to examine her.
Father Pavone has an excellent reputation and I would believe him over Michael Schiavo and George Felos ANY DAY.
BTW, other priests that visited Terri have made observations similar to Father Pavone's.
I said he knows more about her "physical condition" and physical condition goes beyond diagnosis of PVS. For example, he said she was blind calling into question the tape produced by the Schindlers. What little was left of her brain calls into question the reports from nurses that Terri talked with them or that she was working out on parallel bars like Dr H said.
"Monsignor shared with us little anecdotes each time after visiting Terry, and how she reacted to his humor and how she tried her best to respond.
She kept trying even well after the tubes were removed."
It's unbelievable with all the witnesses that testified that Terri was not PVS, that this innocent, lovely woman was murdered.
This might have been orchestrated a long time ago, starting with helping Judge Greer be in a position to have power over Terri's life.
Seems to be quite a bit of that going around. Terri was buried in Florida and her parents have been notified of where. But that's a bad thing according to some.
Not likely.
You didn't read the autopsy report?
You're welcome.
Actually, (cringing here) Hammesfahr was the ONLY doctor (while she was living) that said Terri was legally blind and couldn't see farther than 12 to 18 inches from her face. There are degrees of blindness. Judge Greer is legally blind. That part of the autopsy wasn't a surprise. Terri wore glasses and contacts before the initial incident.
There is absolutely NO evidence he wanted his 15 minutes on Fox News, LOL!
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