Shalom All:

I share this to remind us of what our words/actions should be at the bedsides of those who are in this state.

Dianne
<*}}}><

Signs of Awareness Seen in Brain-Injured Patients
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/science/08coma.html?ei=5099&en=1a8d6900db5e4350&ex=1108443600&partner=TOPIXNEWS&pagewanted=print&position=

----clips----
"This study gave me goose bumps, because it shows this possibility of this profound isolation, that these people are there, that they've been there all along, even though we've been treating them as if they're not," said Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Fins was not involved in the study but collaborates with its authors on other projects.

A better understanding of brain patterns in minimally conscious patients should also help cut down on misdiagnosis by doctors, Dr. Fins said. He said one study had found that as many as 30 percent of patients identified as being unaware, in a persistently vegetative state, were not. They were minimally conscious.

Moreover, mental states can change over time, and some patients have almost completely recovered function after being thought vegetative. Brain imaging would be one way to track these changes, and even link them to efforts at treatment. Doctors have no cure for either a minimally conscious or persistently vegetative state.

"The most consequential thing about this is that we have opened a door, we have found an objective voice for these patients, which tells us they have some cognitive ability in a way they cannot tell us themselves," Dr. Hirsch said. The patients are, she added, "more human than we imagined in the past, and it is unconscionable not to aggressively pursue research efforts to evaluate them and develop therapeutic techniques."
---end clips---