Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comBrain activity test showed 3 of 16 patients thought to be 'entirely unconscious' were actually aware of surroundings
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Remember Terry Sheivo?
You mean the lady who requested that she be taken off life support if she ever got in this situation and the parents wouldn't allow it? Yeah, I remember her.
If I'm ever in this kind of hell I hope they kill me with morphine.
So if 25% of the healthy group could not activate the required areas of their brain, how do researchers know that those in a persistent vegetative state are, in fact, unaware? Terry Schiavo would have liked to know.
good point. but at least we'd know more than we assume to know now.
On autopsy, the part of Terri Schaivo's brain that controlled consciousness was found to have been destroyed. She wasn't there, and she hadn't been there for 15 years.
It's your life - would you want to spend the rest of it in a coma?
Protect yourself - have a living will! Make sure you sign it, get witnesses to sign also, and have it notarized! Then give copies to your spouse, trusted friends, relatives, your doctor and hospital.
If I was in a "vegetative state" yet had any awareness at any time, I would want the docs to keep me alive while science discovered how to treat me. If I'm not dead, I feel I still have a chance of life.
I have been unconscious and in GRAVE condition, expected to die, yet with aggressive medical care and rehab, I am getting many more years to enjoy life and my loved ones.
And there is no "life after death," no mythical man in the sky, no "better place," or any heaven/angels. Never has been, but religion has been useful for placating the people.
ttmadison- would you like us to have FAITH in your last 2 sentences?
Go study biochemistry, page 1 -- there is no scientific reason that there should be life before death either.
@ttmadison: it's an issue that none of us can know for certain. that we end is your belief just as that we go on after death is the belief of others.
the idea of life after death is appealing to me. the stories from those who have been revived and describe apparent after death encounters are encouraging. i do not find the pronouncements of the religious particularly convincing or reassuring.
one thing for sure, we'll know if we get there. and if there is nothing, at least we won't have to be aware we are disappointed. some of us earthlings are so amazing and special that the thought that it will forever be snuffed out is sad. i prefer to live with the hope that part of us will go on. even for those of us who are just kind of an average special.
maridanne, what a nice post. I'm not religious or crazy, but I DO know that we go on after "death". It's just how it is, a natural thing. It would be ridiculous for me to discount my experiences as nothing but imagination. That would be like denying that this article exists. -Swale
I'm 51; if I were to go into a coma and spend, let's say, the next twenty years on my back with my husband, parents and other relatives wondering if I were in there, draining all my family's financial resources to keep me alive - I'd rather be dead than do this. Honestly.
But, as in my first post, it's your choice!
Well, then, if they are showing any cognitive activity, they aren't in a vegetative state. The title makes no sense.
the vegetative state is determined by the clinical assessment standards currently used. the mri sheds new light on a condition thought to have been firmly established. new standards for determining a diagnosis of a vegetative state will likely need to be revised using the new assessment tools.
get it?
wowsers! we need to study the hell out of this and learn all we can about it. if someone in that state can communicate, we owe it to them to provide a way for them to express themselves. we also need to be able to know who is aware of what. this is a whole new level of treatment/care issue for these individuals.