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.]
Answered above. Do you object to lies and hate liars, mylady? If so consider then the Terri's tombstone. Answer if that is a lie engraved for the ages in stone -- for by your answer we'll know the truth about your love of lies.
Then work to change the laws. It's not just Florida that considers feeding tubes life saving equipment.
And you haven't answered the question. You don't like living wills...is that your position?
Basically Greer is a murderer who used every advantage of the Bench to give advantage to fellow murderers and deny the words and testimony to those who sought to rescue the weak and defenseless.
Oh, yes. And the lies told about this case would fill several books. And mainly, sad to say, on the Schindlers side.
Living wills are nothing more that death contracts. I've answered the question already twice. Comprehension is not your forte.
You really need to get a day job.
Yes? You then admit blackhearted Micheal's despicable and spiteful lie engraved on her tombstone?
In Florida, by law as I understand it, they are only enforced when they call for assisted suicide -- removal of care, which care now in Florida's vile regime of law includes basic human sustenence withheld by force. So yes they are death warrants.
So you think people should be kept alive indefinitely even when there is no hope of recovery and they have no cognitive ability left. Even when those people have left a written directive which says they don't want to be kept alive that way. Good to know.
It's people like you that most concern people like me. Because I still believe in the right of self determination and don't wish to see that right removed by the radicals with an agenda.
You have a way to ensure that your rights are carried out. Have a living will which states the opposite of what most of them state. State that you wish to be kept alive indefinitely with machines.
It's people like me, who don't wish to be kept alive with machines (and I comprise the majority) who will be subject to the whims of the people with an agenda.
You misunderstand. It is the Schindlers who have lied repeatedly on national television but been forced to admit the truth under oath. About so many issues it would take a book to detail them all.
Any lie that may or may not have been told by the Shindlers did not result in a person loosing their life, the same can not be said for the other side. So the impact from the lies on the other side are far more important and far more grave, sad to say.
Yours is not a magnificent obsession!
"Not to mention all of the BS about her being blind. If she was blind, there was no way she could follow hands and balloons; unless she had some other perceptive skill, which would still rule out brain death."
Stevie Wonder's eye point to the keyboard from time to time. Doesn't mean he can see it.
If she had no legs and coroner said she couldn't walk, would you discount that too?
Don't be an ally of murder.
Baloney. The Schindlers testified under oath that even if Terri told them she didn't want to be kept alive in that condition, they would keep her alive.
You may call that love. I call it obsession and not love. They are being used by the radical pro lifers who have an agenda beyond the innocent unborn.
bbl..I'm not going to argue the same points over and over today. Try reading a little court testimony or one of the guardian ad litem reports...a little knowledge wouldn't hurt you.
Examples please.
That's free choice only for the suicidially despondent.
Is that what you call a lie? They have been pretty honest about that all along.
You people who say go read the court record and be satisfied are missing the entire point. The COURT is part of what was ALL wrong with what happened to Terri. Judge Greer court was in my opinion an Alice in Wonderland sham.
As I said, I call it obsession and not love. I never said THAT was a lie.
But they've told many. For instance, they said repeatedly on television that they never got to see Terri's bone scan. They had to testify in court that they were given access to it.
They have said repeatedly on television that they don't know why MS lies and said the doctors told him that Terri had a heart attack. They had to admit under oath they knew the doctors had said she'd had cardiac arrest, an entirely different thing.
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