This author may be on to something, unfortunately leans on faulty information in forming his conclusions.
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Two years after the death of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who languished in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years until her feeding tube was removed, the debate continues over how to diagnose severe brain damage.
Several scientific papers published in March and April in Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, and the Spanish Journal of Neurology relay exciting advances in assessing the severity of brain damage, the degree of awareness, and the chances of recovery.
Diagnosis, more so than actual treatment, could mean the difference between life and death, because a grim diagnosis can preclude therapeutic efforts and prompt doctors and families to remove the patient from life support.
The tragedy is that diagnosis techniques are flawed and doctors can be wrong.
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Miracle recoveries
Medical archives abound with stories of patients awaking after years. Terry Wallis is one famous example; after 19 years in a vegetative state, Wallis began talking in 2003, albeit with difficulty. The hope was that Terri Schiavo would someday wake up, too.
The difference, though, is that Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, while those patients who recover partially were in a minimally conscious state and had some degree of awareness of their surroundings.
Sounds clear cut, but a study from London in the 1990s found that about a third of patient thought to be in a persistent vegetative state did show signs of awareness when closely examined.
~Snip~
Right-to-life advocates see such advances as reason to keep all brain-damaged patients on life-support systems. But neurologists stress, by virtue of these advanced tests, that some patients are most certainly in permanent vegetative states and will never recover. Terry Schiavo's diagnosis was nearly unanimous among doctors, and her autopsy also revealed unrecoverable brain damage.
Mistakes can be made, which is why the President and Congress rushed to keep the courts from allowing Schiavo's feeding tube to be removed. But for those who care about the sanctity of life, it might be useful to remember that mistakes are more likely made in life-or-death situations such as capital punishment or the call for war.
New Techniques Probe Consciousness During a Coma
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