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Vegetative, yet communicating?
Stunning new research indicates that some vegetative brain-injury patients show signs of awareness, and can even communicate. This research has obvious and immediate bioethical implications.
The new research suggests that standard tests may overlook patients who have some consciousness, and that someday some kind of communication may be possible.
In the strongest example, a 29-year-old patient was able to answer yes-or-no questions by visualizing specific scenes the doctors asked him to imagine. The two visualizations sparked different brain activity viewed through a scanning machine.
“We were stunned when this happened,” said one study author, Martin Monti of Medical Research Council Cognitive and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England. “I find it literally amazing. This was a patient who was believed to be vegetative for five years.”
The article references Terry Schiavo, stating that these communicative patients differ from Schiavo in that there was no oxygen deprivation to the brain.
Of course, it may only be a matter of time before researchers are “stunned” to discover Schiavo-type of patients who also communicate.
back to top21 Comments to “Vegetative, yet communicating?”
They still can’t bear to admit what they did to Schiavo.
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I just read the article on Fox, and they claim it wouldn’t have worked on Terri Schiavo because she had been oxygen deprived and it doesn’t work on oxygen deprived patients. But they were surprised that they were able to communicate with the people they did communicate with, so one wonders if they had some other advance or used the machines a different way if they would find that oxygen deprived patients also communicate.
What they did to Terri was wrong for this very reason. They don’t know.
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When my mom was dying the nurse told me hearing was the last sense to go, and therefore I should continue talking to her.
It certainly helped us.
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Terri showed excitement when family entered the room, she tracked balloons with her eyes. Some caretakers wanted to try teaching her to eat without a tube, but Michael Schiavo wouldn’t let them.
By the way, the word “vegetative” is insulting in the extreme and should not be tolerated by Christians. With or without our faculties, we are made in the image of God. No impairment exists that suffices to reduce a man to a zucchini.
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Michael Schiavo remains a loathesome individual. Did the law get corrected in Florida and other states to prevent a repeat of what happened with Terri? From what I read, Schiavo had fathered two kids by his common law wife.
That sounded to me as if he had in all but name divorced Terri and therefore renounced any obligation imposed by the vows. He should’ve had no say in her care, esp if her parents were willing to take on that task.
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Kwerna, I couldn’t agree more about the use of “vegetative state.” One wonders how it became a medical term, although I doubt it was intended to deny that we are still God’s creations. Since words have meanings that affect people, it could have a large influence on some unbelievers’ view of the value of life in all stages. Thanks for pointing that out.
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Communicating what?
We need to find out. Yes or no responses may indicate self-awareness, desire, antipathy, mood, and memory . . . or not.
This research is terrific. Everybody welcomes better delineations of the categories of post-coma awareness.
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As soon as I saw this article headline on Yahoo yesterday, before I read the article, I predicted to my daughter that, regardless of what the findings were, the article would mention some disclaimer about how none of this applies to Terry Schiavo. Of course, I was right. I agree with Kwerna–they just can’t tolerate even the thought that her parents were right about her and her “husband” was wrong.
Yes, Scroop Moth, the science is all very interesting, isn’t it. It’s always fascinating to learn explore and learn more about the mysteries of life and humanity. The clinical way in which you express your interest in the subject sounds chillingly Mengelese.
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If I where in a vegetative state and could only communicate yes or no by picturing different visualizations while having my brain scanned, I hope the first question they ask me is if I want them to pull the plug.
Schiavo’s brain case contained a shriveled mostly dead brain and allot of fluid. She wasn’t about to visualize anything. Keeping someone in her condition alive for as long as they did is a Frankenstein-like zombie creating perversity.
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“the word “vegetative” is insulting in the extreme”
Only if one doesn’t know what it means. It was a term that began to be associated with description of clinical states back in the 70’s that acknowledged the amazingly robust capacity of our bodies for recovery following injuries that prior to the age of life-support, wouldn’t have been survived. And as a term, it emphasized capacity for homeostasis, preservation of respiratory/cardiac control, hormonal regulation, and the re-emergence of dirunal rhythms and sleep states (so-called vegetative functions of the brain). It’s not an ideal name, and obviously prone to misinterpretation, but it’s not as demeaning as a superficial understanding might imply.
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Terri Schiavo was not in pain.
Sawgunner said it best in #5. Michael Schaivo, his attorney and quite a few Florida judges were more interested in making a name for themselves than anything else. You really have to question the motives of people who year after year fight so hard to kill someone. That’s what was so despicable. Her family were willing to care for her, but these people needed to kill. That’s a perversion beyond comprehension.
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I was never too offended at the term vegetative state, but I’ve always been horrified when people in this state were referred to as “vegetables.” I don’t hear that much anymore, but it used to be quite common.
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“And as a term, it emphasized capacity for homeostasis, preservation of respiratory/cardiac control, hormonal regulation, and the re-emergence of dirunal rhythms and sleep states (so-called vegetative functions of the brain).”
Gosh, never knew that vegetables achieved respiratory/cardiac control.
Every word has a history. Find a better word.
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Yes, Terri’s brain was shriveled and such when they did an autopsy . . . after dehydrating and starving her to death. From what I understand, that is the normal state of someone who has died that way, and says nothing at all about what her brain was like before she was killed.
And no, this kind of situation doesn’t apply to her, because her brain function was beyond what is being described her. Her ability to communicate didn’t need a brain scan; it could be seen by the eye.
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“never knew that vegetables achieved respiratory/cardiac control. Every word has a history…”
This says more about a limited understanding of the topic and the term than the a problem with the words themselves. I can’t quite sympathize with the standpoint of folks who misunderstand the term “vegetative,” quickly conjuring up images of root cellars, and perpetuate an equivocation of “vegetative” with “vegetable” who then demand that their misunderstanding signals a problem with folks other than themselves. There’s room to learn here among those willing to.
“From what I understand, that is the normal state of someone who has died that way.”
No. Not really. The severe sort of injury evident on imaging and autopsy isn’t the sort of thing that happens over a matter of days, or even weeks. But that’s not what was at issue in Ms. Schiavo’s story. There are scads of know-little armchair neurologists who claimed (and apparently continue to claim) to know what observation of her behavior proved, ironically despite their general contention that external observations imperfectly estimate what’s going on inside. The legions of wannabe experts who claimed to know what was “really” her clinical state lost sight of the case that was decided in court, that of who was best positioned to and invested in care for the life that she had. That’s where the tragedy and travesty occurred.
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The clinical way in which you express your interest in the subject sounds chillingly Mengelese.
Diagnosis is clinical, REE.
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I am reminded that God’s way of communicating goes way beyond what tongue can speak or ear can hear.
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Serious George, I never saw the videos, but those who did said her eyes were tracked following balloons, that she tried to speak, that she clearly showed interest when people she loved came in, etc.–not the signs of her condition that we were led to believe. And the proper testing was never actually done on her–it was in her “husband’s” best interest to have her dead. At best, we’ll never actually know. But I’m inclined to believe her parents and those who were fighting for her life over the husband who is implicated in her injuries and who had a couple of children by his girlfriend by the time he finally managed to get Terri killed.
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Would you argue for the preservation of “moron?” How about “idiot?” Those used to be happenin’ scientific terms.
No matter how innocent, pure, and unstained the syllables may be in the mouths of gents in lab coats, if a word has extremely demeaning associations that regrettably color the way we think about and treat an entire class of helpless persons, it needs to go. We have a whole English language to plumb for alternatives.
E.g., from Wiki:
The syndrome was first described in 1940 by Ernst Kretschmer who called it apallic Syndrome.[4]
The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council has suggested “post coma unresponsiveness” as an alternative term for “vegetative state” in general.[10]
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Apallic = lacking a cortex / neocortical death
Post coma unresponsiveness = a category that includes dead
Not exactly great candidates.
One way to get over problematic but mistaken associations is education. This requires a posture toward learning that sanctimonious chest-thumping can make difficult to adopt {:~)
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“One way to get over problematic but mistaken associations is education. This requires a posture toward learning that sanctimonious chest-thumping can make difficult to adopt {:~)”
Oh… so “moron” is okay, then? I mean, unless you’re one of those who have a bad posture towards learning.
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