Grotesque.
Before modern medical technology, this guy would likely have died soon after his accident.
Now modern technology is unnaturally keeping him alive while locked inside his body.
Must be the worst kind of prison.
I would rather die than live like that.
Yep.
It’s time we stop killing people just because someone else says their life isn’t worth living
It’s a shame the doctors can’t cut him up and resell his parts to other patients. There’s so much money to be made. /sarc
What stood out to me about this story is that the parents already knew for a long time that their son was “in there” and had the ability to communicate. Doctors didn’t believe them until they used their tests and equipment (that had failed them before) to figure it out. All their previous testing hadn’t revealed this, so they believed their testing over simple evidence that the parents were able to figure out long before.
Way too many doctors (thankfully not all!) have such a god complex, and a view of any non-medical people as being ignorant about anything to do with health and physical well-being. And yet they miss so many things that the supposedly ignorant non-medical people know all along. It frustrates me to no end!
This story sounds like the U.S. economy under Barack’s leadership.
Interesting, but color me somewhat skeptical absent further research.
Basically what this doctor did was hook the patient up to an MRI. Then he spoke to the patient and said “imagine yourself playing tennis” and observed a specific part of the brain light up in the imaging. Then he spoke to the patient and said “imagine yourself walking around the house” and another part of the brain lit up. The doctor then determined that “playing tennis” meant “no” and “walking around the house meant “yes”. Then he asked a series of questions like “is the moon made of cheese?” and the “playing tennis” part of the brain lit up supposedly meaning “no”. Then “is the sky blue?” and the “walking around the house” part of the brain lit up supposedly meaning “yes”. Then he asked “are you in pain?” and the patient supposed answered “no” because the “tennis” area lit up.
But as it is impossible to know for sure whether Scott Routley is in any pain, it is also impossible to know if the “no” answer was correct or if it was just coincidental that the “tennis” area of the brain lit up in the imaging. I can’t help but think of “guided communication” efforts that were proved to be wishful thinking and the unconscious influence of the “guide” rather than communication by the “guided”.
People in a persistent vegetative state are not brain dead and no one argues they are, so it is not surprising that under stimulus, even auditory stimulus, that an MRI would show brain activity. But the bigger question is whether that brain activity is conscious thought and communication or a firing of neurons in the brain, different areas of the brain stimulated by different sound patterns.
Again, I’m not poo-pooing it as it could be a huge leap forward in understand how the brain works and in brain injury. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t count this as definitive in terms of communication until and unless the results can be replicated in numerous patients in persistent vegetative states by other neuroscientists, neurologists, researchers using the same methodology and using a control group.