Posted on 03/21/2005 12:53:21 PM PST by ambrose
Schiavo recovery impossible, experts agree
21 Mar 2005 18:02:01 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo, at the center of an emotional and political storm over whether she should be allowed to die, will almost certainly never recover from her unconscious condition, neurologists agree.
She is in a permanent vegetative state, and no one has ever come back from such a condition, according to the American Academy of Neurology.
"Approximately 10,000 to 25,000 adults and 6,000 to 10,000 children in the United States are diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state," the Multi-Society Task Force on Persistent Vegetative State says in its 1995 guidelines on the condition, the latest available.
"Survival beyond 10 years is unusual. The chance for survival of greater than 15 years is approximately 1 in 15,000 to 1 in 75,000," it adds.
While most neurologists agree that recovery is almost impossible, the decision on whether and how long to keep such a patient alive is usually left to the individual doctor and the patient's guardian.
Schiavo has been in the condition, which is far more severe than a coma, since she had a heart attack in 1990 that deprived her brain of oxygen. Under the medical definition, that became a permanent state after a month.
Her husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, has fought to allow her to die and courts have supported him.
The tube was removed on Friday after Florida courts rejected numerous last-ditch legal attempts by the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to keep their daughter alive. But early in the hours of Monday morning President George W. Bush signed a bill allowing federal courts to again intervene in the matter.
The Schindlers believe their daughter responds to them and her condition could improve with treatment. Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, a surgeon and Senate majority leader, has viewed videotapes and agrees.
But Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and bioethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said reflexes can fool non-specialists.
"To the families and loved ones, and to inexperienced health care professionals, PVS patients often look fairly 'normal,'" Cranford said in a statement.
"Their eyes are open and moving about during the periods of wakefulness that alternate with periods of sleep; there may be spontaneous movements of the arms and legs, and at times these patients appear to smile, grimace, laugh, utter guttural sounds, groan and moan, and manifest other facial expressions and sounds that appear to reflect cognitive functions and emotions, especially in the eyes of the family."
Such patients can even squeeze a hand in response to a caress, Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago says in guidance posted on its Internet Web site.
"Sadly, these actions often appear meaningful to hopeful families but are all automatic reflexes -- not movements with a purpose," it reads.
"There are no confirmed reports of anyone fully recovering from a permanent vegetative state lasting more than three months."
This is because in such patients, the cerebral cortex has been destroyed, said Dr. Lawrence Schneiderman, a physician and bioethicist at the University of California, San Diego.
"Four to six minutes of anoxia, lack of oxygen, destroys that completely," Schneiderman wrote in comments posted on the Internet at http://seeingthedifference.berkeley.edu/schneiderman.html.
"The rest of your brain, particularly the brain stem, can survive for fifteen or twenty minutes without oxygen," added Schneiderman, who signed a friend of the court brief in July of last year supporting Michael Schiavo.
"What happens is that that part of the brain, the cerebral cortex, which is us, our personality, who we are, how we think -- our capacity to experience, see, hear, think, emote -- that may be permanently destroyed."
Experts say Terri Schiavo would experience no discomfort if allowed to die, as the part of her brain that experiences pain is unlikely to be functioning.
"...bread-dead." Just because I'm loafing today?
Roger that.
Yep. We know they want Terri to simply go away......pretty sad.
So now we are getting a new definition of life:
A healthy cerebral cortex. They better be careful now, because that would mean that babies in the womb are life.
The basis for the AP article begs the point that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state. The preponderance of evidence available in the public forum makes a compelling case that she is not – or at the very lease that she should be evaluated using the current best practices for diagnosing PVS. Also, the number of critical “why” questions shout for resolution; why no therapy – why does her “husband” control her environment is such a draconian manor – and the list goes on. This is already a public disgrace for the Florida legal system. Let us pray it will not become one for the federal legal system as well.
With that rationale, they might as just as well get rid of all of us because we are all going to die someday.
I'll bet it would be interesting to look at Michael Schiavo's tax returns for the last five years. I wonder how many exemptions he has claimed
Certainly bears repeating.
Oh cool! Finally, an unbiased expert! He only supports Michael Schiavo directly!
Then...DEATH TO EVERYONE! We are all most certainly going to die. Guess we can just start exterminating people.
Bear something in mind everyone... Most experts are self proclaimed. In the firearms rights fight, I have asked many a so called expert on the anti's side of the debate for his or her credentials that make them an expert in the field of firearms. Not one has ever been able to produce any. Only one has had the nads to challenge me on mine... He didn't like it when I read them off to him.
Until I know just who these people are, their OPINION and expert status holds the same credibility as a 12 year old kid who just saw Star Wars going around proclaiming to be a Jedi Master.
Mike
Then since she has already beaten 1 in 75,000 odds, perhaps, just perhaps, the diagnosis was in error? Doesn't that bring in a even little bit of doubt? Doctors make incorrect diagnoses all the time.
Death to the disabled!! See the experts agree!
Now I feel more comfortable about killing Terri. < /sarcasm >
wow, did I say that?... lol
Sounds like a description of Howard Dean.
Whacko liberal environmentalists believe mankind should be exterminated.
And they dare call US Nazis.
Are you stating this woman is NOT being starved to death? Or do you take the Michael Schiavo position where they are not starving her to death but only removing hydration and nutrition?...
The URL of the 'expert' will tell you that: "seeingthedifference.berkeley.edu".
Why can't we murder as well. I saw this little girl the other day who is in a wheel chair and obviously is mentally incapacitated. I feel so sorry for her. I think she needs to be put out of her misery. I think she needs to die, so why can't I just help her get there?
I don't get it. Why is this woman "obviously conscious"? Because her eyes are open? Unfortunately, this article is telling it like it is. I certainly don't have all the answers in this case. I would like to see an MRI done and possibly another try at rehabilitation. But I think the parents may well be wrong. Remember all the parents some years back who believed that their severely autistic children had suddenly begun to write to them through guided communication? These were intelligent people who were fooled because of their desperate desire to believe.
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