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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A woman in a vegetative state for five months appeared in brain scans to imagine playing tennis and to respond to commands, researchers reported on Thursday.
The researchers stressed that the study was unlikely to shed light on issues such as the controversial case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who spent 15 years in a persistent vegetative state and was allowed to die in March 2005 after a long court battle.
They looked at her brain function when listening to sentences such as, "There was milk and sugar in his coffee." The brain scan lit up in very similar ways to those seen in healthy volunteers, Owen's team found.
Originally posted by Shar
This is very interesting...I believe people in a coma like this can hear us. Finally, doctors are seeing actual respones in peoples brains. Now how do we wake them up?
Originally posted by AngelaLadyS
Originally posted by Shar
This is very interesting...I believe people in a coma like this can hear us. Finally, doctors are seeing actual respones in peoples brains. Now how do we wake them up?
Coma patients are like babies. They come out when they are good and ready for the most part.
They have lots of healing and repairing to do... lots of conectins in the brain and elsewhere that have to be repaired and made again. Those injured bodies NEED that 'rest & repair' time.
Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch
Originally posted by AngelaLadyS
Coma patients are like babies. They come out when they are good and ready for the most part.
They have lots of healing and repairing to do... lots of connections in the brain and elsewhere that have to be repaired and made again. Those injured bodies NEED that 'rest & repair' time.
Its a wrong assumption that nerveconnections repair themselves. Recent studies has shown that 'some' of them can, but most cant.
We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths
Tuesday September 12, 2006
The Guardian
For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his home in the South African town of Kimberley and says, "Hello." Shortly after his accident, Johanna had turned down the option of letting him die.
Full Article Here
posted by Long Lance
That's among the best news ever seen on this forum, let's just hope that it works reliably and becomes a standard treatment.
Originally posted by donwhite
posted by Long Lance
That's among the best news ever seen on this forum, let's just hope that it works reliably and becomes a standard treatment.
Uh, L/L, it seems odd this is the only recounting of what would be a news feature world-wide! Fox would run this story 10 times an hour. Pat Robertson would call for more money sent to the 700 Club. Why do we hear nothing?
posted by john_bmth
The Guardian is a pretty reputable source for info over here in the UK. I highly doubt the content was fabricated, plus it is still early days yet
Originally posted by AngelaLadyS
Energy work does help.
Originally posted by donwhite
Uh, L/L, it seems odd this is the only recounting of what would be a news feature world-wide! Fox would run this story 10 times an hour. Pat Robertson would call for more money sent to the 700 Club. Why do we hear nothing?
posted by Long Lance
posted by donwhite
“ . . it seems odd this is the only news world-wide! Why do we hear nothing? [Edited by Don W]
“ . . it's extremely odd, but it sounds surreal, I doubt it's fabricated . . BTW, have you heard of [dental ultra-sound]? It's a boon for patients - not so much for the industry, though so I’ll leave it at that. [Edited by Don W]
PVS is the result of irreparable damage to the cerebral cortex - the "thinking, feeling" part of the brain - but PVS is not to be confused with brain death. "Persistent" in the title indicates the condition, which unlike coma, is generally deemed permanent, but there are intermittent reports of "recoveries."
Terri Schiavo went into a PVS after collapsing and suffering a heart attack in 1990. In 1998 her husband petitioned to have her gastric feeding tube to be removed; her parents did not believe the diagnosis and took the case to court. Ultimately, the court challenges were unsuccessful and in 2005 Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, leading to her death.
There is no treatment for PVS. Instead, the medical team concentrate on preventing infections and maintaining the patient's physical state as much as possible. For most such patients, life expectancy ranges from two to five years; survival beyond 10 years is unusual.
Such breakthroughs [purported recoveries] are controversial, in both medical and legal circles. The British Medical Association, for example, currently deems such miraculous events not as recoveries from PVS, but as an indicator of an earlier misdiagnosis. From The Guardian for 9/12/2006. Edited by Don W]
posted by Long Lance
Such a treatment, if successful, would serve to prevent exactly the scenario you outlined. use it just before disconnecting all machinery (or performing euthanasia), if it fails, well, one can only try. [Edited by Don W]
PS: in Schiavo's case, revival would have been borderline futile I’d say, imagine waking up 20 years later in a totally wrecked body!
[Edited by Don W]