Posted on 03/21/2005 12:55:50 PM PST by ambrose
Posted on Mon, Mar. 21, 2005
Vegetative state can give kin false hope
MALCOLM RITTER
Associated Press
NEW YORK - In the family video played over and over on TV, Terri Schiavo seems to gaze fondly at her mother, with the hint of a smile. On Sunday night, as Congress took up debate on her case, her father told reporters that she responded to his teasing by making a face at him. "It tells us she's still with us," he said.
But in Schiavo's condition, described as a persistent vegetative state, family members can be deceived by things like eye movements and reflexes, experts say.
"It creates this ironic combination of wakefulness without awareness," said Dr. James Bernat, a neurology professor at Dartmouth Medical School.
That's because in a persistent vegetative state, the brain centers that control wakefulness are functioning, but those that permit conscious awareness of oneself or the environment are damaged or destroyed.
As a result, patients close their eyes to sleep and open them when they wake up. If a doctor brushes the eyeball with a wisp of cotton, they may blink. If something gets caught in the throat, they will cough. There may be limited eye movements, though patients can't follow a person walking from one side of the room to another, for example.
That's in contrast to a coma, in which the eyes remain closed and a person is neither aware nor awake, or brain death, in which there is no sign at all that the brain is functioning.
Bernat, past chairman of the American Academy of Neurology's Ethics, Law and Humanities Committee, declined to comment specifically on the Schiavo case. He said outward signs of persistent vegetative state can give family members false hope.
"There's a normal tendency of family members to interpret (random) movements as evidence of awareness," said Bernat, who recalled seeing that happen with his own patients.
He said that when family members claim that a loved one in a persistent vegetative state is purposefully looking at them, he asks to accompany them to the bedside and see for himself. Sometimes, in fact, family members really have noticed genuine signs of consciousness and investigation shows the diagnosis was incorrect, he said. But in his experience, Bernat said, most of the time the family has been wrong.
Nobody can enter a patient's mind and discover what that person is experiencing, he noted. Doctors can only say that despite what family members might believe, "to the best of our ability we cannot convince ourselves there is any evidence of awareness," Bernat said. Doctors try to help the family understand how it's possible to be awake but not aware, he said.
Patients can recover after even a year or two in a persistent vegetative state caused by head trauma, Bernat said, although they generally continue to be disabled. However, he said a vegetative state that was caused by lack of blood or oxygen delivery to the brain and has gone on more than five years is considered permanent.
Schiavo, 41, has been at the center of a long and bitter court battle between her parents and her husband, who wants to remove her feeding tube so she can die.
Court-appointed doctors say Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, after her heart stopped beating temporarily 15 years ago, cutting off oxygen to her brain. She did not leave any written instructions about care, but her husband, Michael Schiavo, contends she told him that she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents dispute that, and deny their daughter is in a vegetative state.
Video showing the dark-haired woman appearing to interact with her family has been televised nationally. But a court-appointed doctor has said the noises and facial expressions are merely reflexes.
In caring for a person in a this condition, doctors are guided by what the patient would have wanted, Bernat said. Some have indicated they want to be treated while others have said they want to be left to die, he said.
Usually patients can breathe without a ventilator. As in the Schiavo case, long-term care involves a feeding tube to deliver fluids and food to the stomach. If family members ask to stop treatment, the tube is removed or medical teams are instructed not to treat infections, Bernat said.
"So who says they are expecting her to recover? All they want to do is to take care of her as she is (and maybe improve in health due to NO HEALTH CARE BEING GIVEN TO HER NOW) for the rest of her natural life.
When they die, her siblings are going to take care of her, they have fought just as tirelessly as her parents. So I assume you live with the idea that if you can't improve from a debilitating injury, you should be killed?"
You are being completely irrational. Did you not read my whole post? I stated that I DO NOT think she should be killed.
Terri's family repeatedly has stated that they believe that Terri can get better. They should just accept her for who she is now, rather than deluding themselves with false hope. I don't have any issues with them taking care of her, that's their choice.
And how do you know she wasn't about to say:
"I want to die"????
And who is to say that 10 years from now, if Terri is still alive, that there could potentially be a treatment that could restore her memory. If John Edwards can proclaim that Christopher Reeve could walk if only they could use stem cells, then why can't they have the same hope for someone in Terri's state?
There's two witnesses cited, more than witnessed her alleged "living will" under which she is being put to death.
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.
And of course, there's the why does her medical record indicate trauma-induced compression fractures throughout her body, from her neck to her ankles?
This stuff reads like something out of Germany in 1937.
Here you go, same story recounted in greater detail at the Christian Legal Society.
http://www.clsnet.org/clsPages/schiavoCase.php
thank you for posting SOMETHING on the other side of the argument. people need to be open to hearing both sides of an argument!
I agree, but to me, this doesn't enter into the equation.
Those out there who are bearing false witness in the interests of saving Terri are still committing sin just as much as her husband is doing conversely to let her die.
Let's stick to verifiable facts.
"Since there has NEVER been an MRI, the diagnoses of persistant vegetative state is not definitive. "
Doesn't the CT scan that shows cerebro-spinal fluid where most of her brain used to be count for anything?
Just sayin'
Bones
ping
I heard the lawyer tell it on Fox. Terri said it so loudly that the security guard or policeman came in to see what was going on.
Ok. It's a verifiable fact that the trauma-induced compression fractures sustained by Terri Schiavo in her neck, ribs, knees, ankles, and elsewhere on her body are not symptoms of the alleged bulimic attack that allegedly put her in this condition.
LOL -yup, the MSM is furiously spinning and jiving. FR will probably get an onslaught of trolls as well....
A CT Scan is virtually useless in diagnosing a persistive vegetative state.
NICE! at least someone here will look at the other side.
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