NationStates Jolt Archive

Link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/02/3)

A man who spent more than six years in a near-vegetative state after a horrific assault has made a dramatic recovery following a pioneering treatment to stimulate his brain with electrical pulses.

The 38-year-old American suffered devastating brain damage during a street robbery in 1999, leaving him almost completely unconscious and in need of round-the-clock care. Doctors who performed emergency surgery on the man told his parents that if he survived the operation, his chances of recovery were zero.

It is the first time the technique, called deep brain stimulation, has been used to treat a patient in what neuroscientists refer to as a minimally conscious state.

With the parents' agreement, the man was fitted with brain electrodes that fed into twin regions of the central thalamus and hooked up to a pacemaker implanted under the skin of the chest during a 10-hour operation. He was then treated with electrical pulses for 480 days.

"My son can now speak, watch a movie without falling asleep, drink from a cup, express pain, he can cry and laugh ... He can say 'I love you mum'. I still cry every time I see my son, but they're tears of joy," his mother said.

Now, there's a few posters we should be working on with this...

To add some debate, for anyone against progress, for technological advancement, for all those who believe the old days were better and for all those who, for any reason be it religious, pseudo-ethical or political, are against meddling with life itself - this is the reason why life is getting better for all.

I wonder if Sicko covered stories like these.

All right, since what is obviously required by the OP is a devil's advocate...

I wonder if the guy is aware enough to even know the condition he is in, and if so, I wonder if he would have prefered not to survive the original incident.

Quality of life may sometimes be more important than quantity, but with many of the advanced medical treatments now available, people are being kept alive artificially past the point where it seems that it would be kinder to NOT use the technology, but to simply let them go with whatever dignity is possible.




Disclaimer: The opinions herein expressed may not be those of the poster, but may have been forwarded in the interests of provoking discussion.

All right, since what is obviously required by the OP is a devil's advocate...

I wonder if the guy is aware enough to even know the condition he is in, and if so, I wonder if he would have prefered not to survive the original incident.

Quality of life may sometimes be more important than quantity, but with many of the advanced medical treatments now available, people are being kept alive artificially past the point where it seems that it would be kinder to NOT use the technology, but to simply let them go with whatever dignity is possible.




Disclaimer: The opinions herein expressed may not be those of the poster, but may have been forwarded in the interests of provoking discussion.

Totally - I'm no good at being unreasonable however...

You have to start somewhere with technology and, much like experimenting on animals is needless to some, it's going to take failures, pain and poor quality of life for those in the early stages of new technology before we can reach the point where we're not simply extending the life of someone who doesn't want it but, instead, bringing people back from paralysis, vegetative states, lack of limbs and more.

It's similar to arguing that we should not continue the space program because a shuttle blew up.

Damn it. I'm not sure what even represents a debating position on this.

This is a disaster. Medically, it is an exception to the rule that long-term coma patients are very unlikely to ever regain consciousness. It would be better if long-term support of coma patients had never been done, because now it can be legally argued that any chance of recovery after one year makes discontinuing support fractional murder.

Draw the line somewhere. Six months, one year. A coma case has to be shown to have unusual features (eg signs of change towards the end of the term) to justify continuance after that. An average adult life is worth approximately a million bucks in the US, perhaps draw the line there.

Damn it. I'm not sure what even represents a debating position on this.

This is a disaster. Medically, it is an exception to the rule that long-term coma patients are very unlikely to ever regain consciousness. It would be better if long-term support of coma patients had never been done, because now it can be legally argued that any chance of recovery after one year makes discontinuing support fractional murder.

Draw the line somewhere. Six months, one year. A coma case has to be shown to have unusual features (eg signs of change towards the end of the term) to justify continuance after that. An average adult life is worth approximately a million bucks in the US, perhaps draw the line there.

Wheeee!

I'm trying to work out a position whereby I can ask that any legal right for relatives of a person in a coma are lost if the coma lasts for one year and/or shows no promising signs of changing.

In that way, the medical profession can either decide to switch off the machine or, if the case is interesting, keep it going for further medical testing.

Funerals and the right to burial are for the past and we should recognize a cadaver when we see one and utilise it for those that are living. If that cadaver is still composed of living tissue, in the case of a long-term untreatable coma, then all the better.

It should appease animal rights activists as well.

Wheeee!

I'm trying to work out a position whereby I can ask that any legal right for relatives of a person in a coma are lost if the coma lasts for one year and/or shows no promising signs of changing.

In that way, the medical profession can either decide to switch off the machine or, if the case is interesting, keep it going for further medical testing.

Funerals and the right to burial are for the past and we should recognize a cadaver when we see one and utilise it for those that are living. If that cadaver is still composed of living tissue, in the case of a long-term untreatable coma, then all the better.

It should appease animal rights activists as well.

Meh. Animal rights activists tend to be pretty strong on individual human rights as well.

Medical experiments on coma patients? There's your debating point. Should be busting fifty posts by now. Sorry I can't help ... it sounds rather practical to me.

Wheeee!

I'm trying to work out a position whereby I can ask that any legal right for relatives of a person in a coma are lost if the coma lasts for one year and/or shows no promising signs of changing.

In that way, the medical profession can either decide to switch off the machine or, if the case is interesting, keep it going for further medical testing.

Funerals and the right to burial are for the past and we should recognize a cadaver when we see one and utilise it for those that are living. If that cadaver is still composed of living tissue, in the case of a long-term untreatable coma, then all the better.

It should appease animal rights activists as well.

No, really. If you'd written a short essay on the medical uses of coma patients, laying out your position that they are legally dead, non-persons, yet ideal subjects for medical experiments for having functioning organs, your thread would be made of go.

Yeah, you'd get called a troll, too. Better luck next time. ;)

...I think I'd rather just be allowed to die.

No, really. If you'd written a short essay on the medical uses of coma patients, laying out your position that they are legally dead, non-persons, yet ideal subjects for medical experiments for having functioning organs, your thread would be made of go.

Yeah, you'd get called a troll, too. Better luck next time. ;)

Luke, you don't know the power of the dark side :)

interesting story... but they do need to study the long term effects. will he need the constant stimulation via outside sources (even if its 1 treatment/month?) will he improve on his own to a near state of before his attack?

I'm happy for his parents, but this does bear study and watching.

Schiavo reference countdown: +/- 20 posts or 1 page.


The wonders of medical science never cease to amaze.

Totally - I'm no good at being unreasonable however...

You have to start somewhere with technology and, much like experimenting on animals is needless to some, it's going to take failures, pain and poor quality of life for those in the early stages of new technology before we can reach the point where we're not simply extending the life of someone who doesn't want it but, instead, bringing people back from paralysis, vegetative states, lack of limbs and more.

It's similar to arguing that we should not continue the space program because a shuttle blew up.

Not entirely. The continuation of the space program does not rely on us using humans as guinea pigs and saying "it is ok to blow some up in the name of progress, so let's go ahead and do it." The difference is that we have a reasonable expectation that testing of space shuttles can be done without subjecting people to those failures, pain and poor quality of life.

I am in favor of bringing people back from paralysis and such. I just don't know how ethical it is to do the "animal testing" on humans. How else can it be done? I don't know. But if it were me in a vegetative state, I wouldn't want to be forced to hang around for years until someone found a way to bring me back to the point where I could only say a few words and maybe not hurt myself if I ate with a plastic spoon. I think that if I were aware of either the vegetative state itself, or the severe losses in the "brought back" state, I would be more unhappy than if I were allowed to die.