Tuesday, 09 February 2010

  • Vegetative Patient is Able to Respond to "Yes or No" Questions


    According to the New York Times, a 29-year old vegetative patient in Belgium has learned to signal to doctors the answers to their "yes or no" questions by using brain waves.

    Having been in a vegetative state for 5 years, the outlook for this patient was doubtful. However, within the last couple months, doctors have recognized "distinct traces of [brain] activity" on an imaging machine when he is asked questions like "Do you have any brothers?" There was a clear pattern of "answers" in the brain waves when the patient had to answer yes or no to specific questions.

    This study (found in "The New England Journal of Medicine") does not suggest that every patient in similar conditions will be able to communicate through this same practice. The study reported that "the hidden ability to displayed by the young accident victim is rare."

    This revelation is outstanding and uplifting when concerned with the nameless patient. However, it opens a vault of questions that will now have to be answered when handling patients who seemingly have no brain activity (or, patients in a vegetative state).

    Questions on ethical treatment of patients in similar situations will now be reassessed, as this study "exposed the limits of bedside test diagnosing mental state." People may even start to reconsider the decisions for DNR or DNI papers (Do Not Resuscitate and Do Not Intubate, respectively). Now, visitors of these patients will have to consider whether or not their brain wave is reacting when asking questions like "Can you hear me?" instead of looking for finger twitches or hand holding.


    What do you think of this new study? Have you considered what you would want done if you were in a vegetative state?

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Comments (24)

  • PervyPenguin@xanga

    What would I want done if I were in a vegetative state?

    Have someone KILL ME for god's SAKE!

    D:

    - Kunoichi
  • Ballisticfutbol@xanga

    i can't say i totally trust the findings, granted i don't have any medical backround. but if i were braindead or a vegetable i'd want to have the plug pulled. life is for living, when that's no longer possible, its time to accept that. i think people spend so much time avoiding death that they fail to realize that death gives validation to our lives.

  • tomorrow_may_rain@xanga

    @Ballisticfutbol@xanga - I agree, but I feel like a lot of time people are trying to hold on to other people's lives. If I was in a vegetative state, I would want the "plug pulled," as well, but I know my family would try to hold on to me even if there was not hope. 
  • mathematicalbagpiper@xanga

    Guys, this is why you should have an advance directive in place. I don't care if you're 18 or 118, get one and make your wishes known. 
  • Shock_Every0ne@xanga

    That's awesome!
    But im sure a lot of people would rather be dead then be in a vegetative state for 5 years.. so sad
  • anonymous

    I make a directive to "pull the plug" then in a way, it is like saying please let me


    commit suicide.  It also makes you, the "plug puller" a murderer in atleast a slight degree so to speak.  So i guess the best thing to do is not to have a personal directive about it, but let them doctors personally intimate with your condition decide about pulling the plug for humanitarian reasons.  Odd, because they are to follow some oath to only try to improve the conditions rather than worsen them.  It's all very complicated, but I guess compassion needs to be considered at least, rather than strict law.
  • BlehhItsTu@xanga

    my parents would pull the plug. :(
  • iiinfinitesimal@xanga

    i mean, have hope for a little while... but after 6 months, if there's NO HOPE, then pull the plug and start a charity in my name or something.
  • chakram54@xanga

    If I were in a vegetative state, I'd want them to "pull the plug".  You would pretty much be "dead", at least in a mental state.
  • azashi@xanga

    i would say give me about three years, then people can pull the plug.
    it's weird though; my mother was in a coma a couple years back and she said that she was able to hear people talking and she tried to respond, but she couldn't. so maybe it's not entirely new...?
  • u_topia@xanga

    My professor brought this up in psych class yesterday!

    Apparently, some patients who falls into these comas are fully there, and it's their body that fails them. They can hear and feel everything, but they can't respond or move or speak. They're trapped in their own bodies!

    If this happened to me, I wouldn't want to pull the plug... If I were completely there stuck inside my own head, but still able to remember who I am, answer questions, and aware of the world around me, is there a reason to pull the plug. I mean aren't there stories about people who wake up after years of being in a coma and have full recollection of being in that state?

    If there's hope that you could wake up, I don't think I would want to prematurely end my life..!
  • wideopenskies@xanga

    @u_topia@xanga - Wow. I feel like I'd go literally insane to be trapped in that manner, not being able to speak or respond or move... my goodness.
  • EccentricSiren@xanga

    I have thought about this a lot.  Maybe it's from reading too many coma stories.  I think if there was a reasonable amount of hope that I would recover and not be completely screwed up, I'd want to stay alive.  But if I was going to be immobile and unable to communicate, I'd probably just want to be allowed to go to the next world if there is one.

    But the thing is...I have never been in a vegetative state.  I don't know what I would want.  How many times in life have I thought I would know what I'd want in a given situation, only to find myself in said situation and realize that I wanted something completely different?  I'm sure being in a vegetative state is no different.  I won't know what I want unless it happens.  But once it happens, it will be too late to make my wishes known.  So all I can do is pray it never happens to me.

    My mother knew a woman who had Lou Gehrig's disease.  She was immobile and unable to speak.  She could only communicate by blinking her eyes.  I can't imagine how difficult an existence that would be.  I wouldn't want to be like that.  But she wanted to live.  She did everything in her power to make sure she was kept alive.  My mother became her advocate and stayed that way until her friend eventually died from a combination of her illness and the abuse she endured at the hands of those who "cared" for her.

    So all I know is that I really do not know what I would want.
  • Bluekiller2025@xanga

    Nope.  Pull the plug.  Would you really want to waste 5 years or more of your life?  Also even if you did wake up, once your in a coma for so long you have to relearn everything all over again.  I'd rather just die.
  • SerenaDante@xanga

    I've always said that if I become so incapacitated, I'd rather just die. There's no point in forcing the people who care about me to waste money or years of time trying to "bring me back" when it may never happen, whether I have brain waves or not.
  • hippiechristian73102@xanga

    I wrote a paper on this for my English class last quarter, including some results from a study done in Belgium.  I decided this a long time ago, but I would want the plug pulled if I was in a vegetative state.
  • Alyxandri@xanga

    It reminds me of Johnny Got His Gun... I know, completely different situation. :(


    I would want the plug pulled after an amount of time. But I'm saying that now, while I am healthy.
  • Day923@xanga

    Being in a vegetative state seems torturous.. ): 
  • MiSS_OH_SO_FLY@xanga

    there is no point living if ur a veg.
    its gonna hurt ur loved ones just as much to see u lie in a bed for the rest of ur "life" as it will to bury you..

  • Adrenaline_Unknown@xanga
    I would NOT want someone making my decision for me if I were like that.
    But I'm not one of those "OMG YOU'RE KILLING SOMEONE" thinkers. If someone told me to pull the plug if they ever went into a vegetative state, I'd pull it for them.
    But don't go unpluggin' me :)
  • Mangonese@xanga

    I think everyone should watch Johnny Got His Gun and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Both are about Locked-In Syndrome. It really gave me perspective on a lot of things.
  • Mangonese@xanga

    @EccentricSiren@xanga - My grandfather died of the same disease. It's awful, but we would have never thought of "pulling the plug on him" until he conveyed to us it was okay. :[
  • insert_label_here_003@xanga

    I know if I was in a vegetative state my mom would fight to get the plug pulled. I know she would never want to be in a vegetative state herself.
    I always wonder how it is for people in a vegetative state....Do they dream? Can they hear the people around them?

  • lauren_lethal@xanga

    I know a woman that was in a coma for 3 months & the doctors thought there was no hope but one day her mother was brushing her hair & she said 'you're hurting me' & she is alive now. It's been a couple of years, I last saw her in December 2008, the day I left to live in Japan & she said my name, I was so surprised she remembered me but apparently she does & she does still have memories of the past, she can still think for herself.

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