New hope for the brain dead!

From USA Today

Scientists have detected glimmers of awareness in some vegetative brain-injury patients and have even communicated with one of them - findings that push the boundaries of how to assess and care for such people. 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." Ever since a research paper four years ago showed apparent signs of awareness in a vegetative patient - one who was included in the new study - families of patients have been clamoring for brain scans, said Dr. James Bernat of Dartmouth Medical School, a spokesman for the American Academy of Neurology.

In fact, a spokeswoman for a patient advocacy group said the organization will urge families to ask about the type of brain imaging used by the researchers. But experts said more study is needed before the specialized brain scans could be used routinely. "It's still a research tool," Bernat said. Experts also emphasized that only a few tested patients showed evidence of awareness. And they said it is not clear what degree of consciousness and mental abilities the signs imply.

 Allow me to roll this up for you. On the one hand, educators are doing everything possible to reduce the 'common denominator' and 'science' is doing everything to elevate the least among us. Parity will be reached when we are all as stupid as our neighbor. YOUR neighbor won't be 'running for office'. Nor will mine. The people who will 'run' for office are 'smarter' than you. They were born 'smarter'. The rest of us are to be 'treated' with the best of intentions, every 'appropriate' concern and with all the genuine consideration due livestock.

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Comments

[Rose]

This sort of thing is exactly what Terry Schiavo's family was hoping would come about to test her ability to understand some things. But the court allowed her to die on the say-so of an adulterous husband. Sure hope they can't sleep at night.

[Steel]

As someone who is currently faced with deciding 'quality of life' issues as regards both myself and my 'best friend', I'll say this ...

Being spoon fed or wheeled around for the rest of life is not a 'quality' existence. It would suck and I wouldn't wish that on anyone ... except perhaps for a few special deserving 'bastards'.

I would hope the decision could be made in advance, but in the absence of same, we, as a society, must come to some point where we are ALL comfortable.

The Schaivo case was troubling on so many levels. I think all parties involved were so entrenched in their ideologies, personal agendas and religiously bound that Terry was lost from the beginning.

I say the decision to 'choose death' should be as simple as establishing a 'living trust'.

And as impossible to override.

But there ARE and should be ways to do so it IF the situation warrants.

I think next of kin and lawyers/courts should/must be party to the final 'say' but there should be a third person - someone unconnected to both AND who would not benefit in any way - assigned by such an agreement to provide a quorum.

The deciding vote should be left to someone outside the 'family', possible personal gain and the realm of law entirely.

That said, even blessed with life, some folks just need to die.