In a new medical study sure to remind the world of the debate surrounding the forced dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, researchers found the injured brain of a man in a "vegetative state" for 19 years rewired itself, permitting him to renew communication with his loved ones.
The findings by Nicholas Schiff and his colleagues at Weill Medical College at Cornell University suggest the human brain shows far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever before suspected.
In 1984, 19-year-old Terry Wallis was thrown from his pick-up truck in an accident near his Massachusetts home. He was not found until 24 hours later, in a coma with massive brain injuries.
Within a few weeks he had stabilized in what was alternately characterized as a "minimally conscious state" or a "permanent vegetative state." Most doctors saw little hope he would ever improve. And he didn't – for 19 years. Then, in 2003, he started to speak.
Over a three-day period, Wallis regained the ability to move and communicate, and started getting to know his 20-year-old daughter, only 1 year old at the time of the accident.
Wallis was frequently classified as being in a permanent vegetative state. Though his family, like Schiavo's, fought for a re-evaluation after seeing many promising signs that he was trying to communicate, their requests were turned down.
WorldNetDaily.com
4 comments:
Rob:
Your claims are based on the autopsy of Terri Schiavo. An autopsy is performed after a person dies. In Terri's case it was done after she was starved for several days and after many years of no rehab what so ever.
This would cause the brain show regression, not improvement.
You are comparing the condition of a live person to a dead one.
"Illision of life". Wow. That scares me.
When are we tricked into thinking something is alive?
Is a fetus that does not have a fully developed briain alive or is it an illusion?
Was the guy in the story alive 19 years ago or was it an illusion.
Who gets to decide what is real and what is an illusion?
I would strongly disagree with your take. The Catholic church says that the medical community does have the authority to determine a person brain dead when they display complete cessation of all organized neurological activity throughout the entire brain.
But the second part of this determination requires continued circulation and respiration through mechanical means even after brain function has ceased.
Terri was not on mechanical life support. (Unless you consider a feed tube as such, which I do not)
The brain is still keeping the person breathing, the heart beating and other bodily functions going yet declare them brain dead?
Neurological criteria to determine brain death consist of four key signs: coma or unresponsiveness, absence of cerebral motor responses to pain in all extremities, absence of brain stem reflexes, and apnea.
The Catholic Church looks to the medical community to determine the biological signs that indicate with moral certainty that this event has already occurred. If there is uncertainity, we must never declare a person "brain dead". I believe stories like this remind us of the awesome responsiblity God has given us to protect life.
And, back to the original discussion, there is no way Terri could have recovered.
This is the crux of the argument ... I see one side has faith in a God who can do anything, then other side makes a statement like the above ...
She died in the cardiac arrest in 1990.
Technically she died when God recalled her spirit.
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