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.]
You are.
I have seen plenty of the information on thread after thread. No, I have not read them because I saw no need to.
Her medical condition was not a point of contention with me. PVS or not - I do not believe a husband has the right to kill a wife unless there is 100% proof of her wishes.
There was not in this case. And the facts of Michael's actions showed me his intent. As I have explained in other posts.
The basic point of this whole thing is that man is not authorized to kill a non-dying woman. As I have mentioned over and over.
Others like and enjoy the pouring over point by point of the detail - I'll leave that to them. If I did, fine - but the next time I would be writing about it - it would not be retained in my brain other than pro or con.
I am not a detail person - but I am passionate and avidly interested in the precedents of this case, the lawmaking that is going on unchecked and by unelected people and the goals and intents of the euthanasists and the apparent start of man being allowed to kill with state support (nazism) or state-sponsored killing of American citizens.
So others can do the prowling and arguing over who is the better witness - it won't be me.
In his struggle to carry out his wife's long lost wishes to be dead. Yes isn't he the angel, the husband I bet all woman wish they could have. I wonder how Terri would have liked it if she knew he was spending HER money Fighting HER parents. Something tells me this was not what she would have wanted.
And the fact that you say I totally miss the center question of the case is at best ignorant. But having read some of your other posts, I find that is no surprise. Have a good evening.
Then you need to advocate that more people have living wills. Last I knew, about 5 months ago, approx. 30% of the people in this country had a living will.
Yet there are thousands (according to Congressmen who testified on the floor of the Senate) tens of thousands of people who are taken off various forms of life support every year in this country with a living will.
It's happened in my family. Ask everyone you know. If you've ever stood at the bedside of someone who was hooked up to machines that kept them alive and doctors have said there's no hope, everyone, every time, will whisper "don't let that happen to me".
Now if you do want to be kept alive indefinitely regardless of your prognosis, be sure to state that in writing as well.
I'm not condemning your beliefs. But the lies told about this particular case surpass anything I've ever seen before on Free Republic. The lies have stood on FNC, various conservative news sites and other web sites and it's made me look with a more jaundiced eye toward our conservative friends. If we have to win an argument with a lie, it's over before it even began.
Give me a break. The doctors did not realize she was blind because they were incompetent.
You're wrong. Even a CAT scan can't always detect cortical blindness.
That's not a reliable thing either.
According to studies cited last year in the Hastings Center Report by a medical researcher and a law professor at the University of Michigan, Angela Fagerlin and Carl E. Schneider, almost a third of such decisions, after periods as short as two years, no longer reflect the wishes of those who made them. The "health care proxy" or durable power of attorney, through which we assign someone we trust to make the decisions we can no longer make, is the better document, but it optimistically presupposes that we will each have with us at end of life "someone we trust."
From here
Are you saying that it was impossible to diagnose her blindness? That no doctor on this planet would have been able to diagnose that? If they did some decent testing on her this would have been diagnosed.
I think FR has permanently changed. I don't sense as much good will in discussions. It is hard to remain civil while under attack. Maybe soon the Schiavo case will be put to rest and FR can settle down a bit.
Unfortunately, to some people, the facts still don't matter.
It's one thing to be opposed, on principle, to removing people from life saving equipment.
It's another for some people on this thread, not you, to be absolutely uninformed and spreading what have become urban myths. FR looks like a dumping ground for every conspiracy theory that has come down the pike. It's most unfortunate.
Too bad this wasn't used to debunk Michaels claim about Terris wishes.
What a great American Sam was.
I have to agree. Although I'm on the other side of the debate, we can agree on this. I called no one names today but was told by a poster that I was a "Terribot" and paranoid. It's difficult to remain civil while posting links and excerpts and the response is only namecalling.
The Cult of Terri will not die. Soon some people will report seeing her image in a taco shell.
I don't understand how someone can take a stand on something and not have all the information they can get. Then there are the people who pride themselves on their ignorance and don't need to read the medical records to know what is true. Amazing.
I have the feeling that Mr. Clemens would have plenty to say about the Terripalooza industry and the conspiracy theories surrounding her case.
Actually what has changed is that it is now known that there is a huge segment of the population that is very different at the core from those who believe that what happened to Terri was wrong. There is a line in the sand for everyone, for me the position a person takes on Terri tells me all I need to know about them as a person.
I don't know about others, but when we prepared our living will years ago (which needs to be updated), we were asked a multitude of questions. Two pages worth, as I recall.
With or without a written directive, my husband knows my wishes. If I am to be kept alive by machines with no hope of getting off the machines, he is to let me go. Especially if I have no cognitive ability.
I trust him to do whatever he can for whatever period of time the doctors recommend. If they decide it is hopeless, he is to let me go.
In this case, MS became a nurse to care for Terri. Nurses testified under oath he was so demanding of her care they actually dreaded seeing him walk down the hallway. Terri's parents testified his care of her was exemplary. He even agreed to experimental surgery, as a last resort.
After three years, the doctors told him it was hopeless. That is the same time I would expect my husband to start making plans to let me go. And even if he had found some other companionship in the interim, he is honorable enough that he would respect my wishes.
And my wishes aren't terribly different than most peoples. I personally do not know anyone who wishes to be kept alive indefinitely by machines, with no hope.
So to respond to your post, some people on this forum are terribly concerned that we are well on the way to disposing of disabled people, which is the most ridiculous thing I have heard espoused about this matter.
Other people have said that even with advanced directives, we can't hope to have our wishes carried out because there is no way to cover every contingency.
I can only tell people who are opposed to the removal of life saving equipment, which in the St of Florida and other states includes feeding tubes, they need to put in writing that they want to be kept alive indefinitely no matter what the prognosis is. Period. That will be followed.
I fear it's changed permanently as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.