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.]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/1427101/posts?page=1
It refers to incidents related in a deposition by Carla Sauer Iyers, a nurse who cared for Terri for more than one year, that after Michael's visits to Terri behind closed and locked doors, she'd find the A/C reset to maximum cooling and the room temperature much too low for a sedentary patient.
This information was included in a petition to the court, presumably to remove Michael as guardian because he was abusive. I am doing this from memory at a borrowed computer while on the road. If my memory errs, anyone who can correct it -- please do.
"I am not blinded by emotions, I asked you very simply how your counter argument has anything to do with a comment I made with respect to conspiracy theories, instead of throwing around insults why don't you explain how a statement about conspiracy theories has anything to do with your comments."
The comment has to do with YOUR conspiriracy theory. An equal one can be made. What's the insult? You being emotional about the issue? Are you saying you aren't?
Greer, as we see here, dismissed the matter, saying that it was no longer relevant. (Really? And if Michael inflicted trauma leading to Terri's "collapse," that doesn't affect his guardianship?)
Greer's statement that the document was available "over time" is extremely slippery. It was not available to the Schindlers for ten years or more after the scan.
"I am not into medical analysis"
I am but thanks anyway.
"She was alive not-dying"
Everyone is dying...just at different rates.
And yet as late as this year, the Schindlers were on television complaining that medical reports were withheld from them and they believe Terri had broken bones when she presented at the hospital and that's why they presumed they weren't given the bone scan.
See how that works?
And they did testify in court to the bone scan; if I linked the incorrect link earlier it's because I've gotten rid of most of these files and the new ones aren't properly labeled as to trial and date.
My comment has to do with my stating that the killing of Terri was not bought about by a big conspiracy as so many have alluded to (see post #627). How could a statement about Shindler motives be at all related to that? To which Smartalec responded (post#715) with a counter post having to do with something about the Shindlers motives. To which I responded to in post #732 stating that the connection between the two is missing. To which Smartalec responded to in post #774 - with no explanation of the connection.
Then in post #787 you step in and call me stupid. Which in my book is an insult.
With respect to the question regarding if I am emotional about this subject. I would ask you to point to ONE post where I exhibited ANY emotion. I don't consider being called emotional an insult, however I do not think I have displayed any emotion on any of my posts that could possibly lead you to know what my emotional level is.
Actually it was DaveS that called me stupid - so I take back the comment about the insults to you.
Actually it was DaveS that called me stupid - so I take back the comment about the insults.
Ok Dave S I will explain it - since it is obvoius you are too lazy to read the posts yourself.
My comment has to do with my stating that the killing of Terri was not bought about by a big conspiracy as so many have alluded to (READ post #627). To which Smartalec responded (READ post#715) with a counter post having to do with something about the Shindlers motives. To which I responded to in post #732 stating that the connection between the two POSTS is missing. To which Smartalec responded to in post #774 - with no explanation of the connection. Then in post #787 you step in and call me stupid. And the rest is all about you not getting any of it.
If you are going to quote others like Smartaleck in your post, make at least some effort to have your response have something to do with what you are quoting. Either that or just make your comment without quoting others. By the way, most people I know read the posts in the order they are made, not directly following the development of your profound thoughts over time. Each of your stirring pronoucements should be able to stand on its own.
The post that you responded to by calling me stupid does stand on its own, it is just that you did not understand it and jumped to the wrong conclusions about it. Here it is for your convenience:
How do you connect the above with the outcome of Terri being killed? None of what you mentioned had any bearing on the court order to kill Terri. Are you saying that Terri's parents conspired to get Michael to ask judge Greer to kill Terri? Makes no sense.
The statement is clear and it really does stand on it's own and it is not stupid. Since you called me stupid I decided it was worth my effort to try to explain to you why you misunderstood my post. Maybe I succeeded maybe I did not. Either way I suspect we both wasted too much time on it. I most likely would have never even bothered responding to your post except that when someone calls me stupid I tend to want to defend myself.
You are being very dense about this, and I know you wont get what I am about to say but I will say it anyway.
The reason my response does not appear to have anything to do with the quote from Smartaleck is because I was trying to explain to Smartaleck that his/or her post had nothing to do with my original post. Hence the question I asked was :
How do you connect the above with the outcome of Terri being killed?
The question is whether the bone scan was available to the Schindlers before something like 2002. I see no answer to that here but haven't time to study the document.
My point was that your comment did not have anything to do with the comment you posted of smartalecks. It made no sense. Since you posted both together, one would assume that you thought they did.
I give up.
I found the section I have referred to many times. The footnote that Wolfson made is made because the Schindlers had since changed their minds.
Initially, as you will see below, in court testimony, they said they would keep Terri alive even if she expressed the wish that she be allowed to die rather than live in her current condition.
The Schindlers also initially testified that they would permit amputations of her limbs.
The footnote to the Wolfson report was made because they later realized how gruesome that sounded and they changed their minds.
Here is the section taken directly from the Wolfson Report which was submitted to Jeb Bush; both sides liked and trusted him more than any of the other guardian ad litems.
"Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state."
http://home.comcast.net/~trinity_tx/wolfson.htm
"When did the Walker testimony take place? Why isn't it dated like the rest of the material?"
Why? Dunno, it's only excerpts from a whole lot of testimony.
Here's one source....not sure if it's complete.
DR. WALKER'S DEPOSITION-----11/21/2003
http://www.hospicepatients.org/dr-walker-t-schiavo-bone-scan-deposition.txt
"The footnote that Wolfson made is made because the Schindlers had since changed their minds."
Can they do that? MS changed his mind, apparently, and many feel that was just WRONG! LOL
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