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"Vegetative State" Patients Can Communicate
Kittenman writes "The BBC is carrying a story about researchers in the UK and Belgium who can detect the thinking processes within a patient previously thought to be in a vegetative state. The researchers ask the patient verbally to think in certain ways to indicate a 'yes', in other ways to indicate a 'no' — and have successfully communicated with 4 out of 23 patients previously thought to be in a coma."
A vegetative state is by definition where there is no detectable awareness. You could legitimately say that they were "previously thought to be in a vegetative state," but if you detect awareness then they are in a coma.
5 of 54 patients who underwent this procedure. Showed a possible response.
3 of those 5 it turned out showed awareness to normal stimuli and were either mislabeled by doctors, or their condition changed.
So basically that leaves 2 patients out of 51 seeming to "be able to modulate their brain activity". And only ONE of those was able to "correctly answer 5 of 6 yes/no questions"
This could be legit, but there is also PLENTY of room for statistical chance to have created this "result".
The bottom line is that too much of a big deal is being made out of a tiny kernel of good data in a mountain of null results.
Relative: "Oh, I just don't know what he would want! I can't make this decision for him..."
Doctor: "Well, thanks to recent breakthroughs we may be able to ask him directly. Lets just get him into this MRI..."
Doctor: "The results are clear, we were able to communicate with him and he was very adamant about stopping all treatment. He clearly does not want to live out his remaining days in this state, and I don't think anyone could blame him for that."
Relative: "If that's his wish then yes, lets stop all treatment."
Doctor: "I'm sorry m'aam, but that's no longer an option..."
It may have been funny if it weren't so sad...
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Considering that Schiavo had no cerebral cortex, it's pretty much a given that she had no awareness. The article doesn't say all patients in a vegetative state are aware, just that some are, or more to the point, have been misdiagnosed.
If that's the case then at least kill her in the chance that we were wrong and she was conscious. No point in making someone starve.
But nobody had the balls to do this...
Considering that Schiavo had no cerebral cortex, it's pretty much a given that she had no awareness.
Given that most of Schiavo's "supporters" think awareness is caused by souls rather than brains, I don't think facts about her condition are going to have much influence on their views.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade