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.]
I'm not certain what that statement was supposed to mean. But the neurologist and the ME who examined the brain found so much destruction of the occipital lobes that they could diagnose cortical blindness. That means that the eyes themselves are normal, but the brain does not process the information. That is why the doctors who examined her did not realize she was blind.
I saw that thread. It's even got a bash Bush troll on it.
Yep. That's all that was required for MS
to do per the court order.
But that's a bad thing according to some.
Yep, again.
If the parents had been
notified of the internment,
to be sure..MSM cameras would
have been everywhere, again,
making Terri a spectacle.
Good to hear. When I came across what Ann Coulter said and passed it on, it has gotten a few chuckles. Unfortunately, with Greer's blindness, he has had misfortune in his life. And I feel he made a very bad decision with what he did to Terri Schiavo, her parents and her brother and sister.
There is a link in post #144 concerning the doctor's misadventures with a dissatisfied patient named M.T. This went to court. You say that, per Greer's court, "not one" was helped. That was decidedly not the case in this other court's findings.
In the linked case, the administrative law judge found, "There is evidence that in over 200 patients seen by Hammesfahr that a large percentage improved after being treated by Hammesfahr." (Items 56 and 57, which give the details of the testing by a Dr. Gimon.)
Items 58 and 59 report the details of another impressive finding: "Diane Hartley tested two groups of Hammesfahr's patients who were treated at his clinic... Of the 242 patients tested by Ms. Hartley, 221 patients demonstrated improvement in one or more of the areas tested and 21 showed no improvement."
#60 states: "The evidence establishes that Hammesfahr informed his patients by the use of videos, orientation sessions, literature and a web site on the Internet of the nature of the therapy and did not guarantee that the patients would improve as a result of the treatment. Patients were able to make an informed decision on whether to try the treatment."
The judge found against Dr. Hammesfahr on some point of the Florida statutes that I do not understand, but I think it had to do with advertising rather than medicine. But the same document credits Dr. Hammesfahr with something like a 90% treatment success rate.
I wonder how many of the Terri "supporters" will be scouring the cemetary trying to find her grave site.
Um, those patients did not have PVS. I mis-stated when I said he never successfully treated anyone and corrected myself in a later post.
Dr. H claimed he could help patients who were PVS. But when asked in court to provide documentations, names, etc., redacted of course to protect confidentiality, he could not do so.
Yes, I am. I only mention ones that might be libel.
They will only have to see the crowd in the cemetery
& follow them!
I wonder how Greer (who is legally blind) felt after hearing that Terri was also blind. Kindred souls. Ha! The media used the blindness as just another reason to bump her off. I wonder how Greer felt about Terri's blindness.
MS has fulfilled
that court order.
I'm glad Michael Schiavo didn't dump her in Pennsylvania. Wonder why he changed his mind? (Duh.)
So kind of the man. A real gent.
If you read the court documents you will find that this is Michaels version of what transpired. The Schindlers version is completely different. They say the "fight" started because they asked Michael when he was going to start using the settlement money on Terri's rehabilitation.
Micheal's trophy. For victory over the Schlinders and that anchor-weight of a daughter he was handcuffed to.
You're fooling yourself.
I am glad to find an area of agreement with you, Dave. Nope, he can't cure one single person he doesn't treat.
Pity he wasn't given a chance to go 0-for-1 or 1-for-1 with Terri. Nobody can say it wouldn't have worked.
More importantly what happened to the $700,000 that was supposed to go to treat her?
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