Scientists Claim Coma Victims May Still Be Awake

[daemon37]

Fraud-buster James Randi has replied:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/783-this-cruel-farce-has-to-stop.html

Seriously... what the heck is wrong with people? Why are you so utterly eager to chase horror stories?

Nice find. I did not know that James Randi had talked out about the delusion of Facilitated Communication. He can always put things into proper perspective. I'm really glad I got to meet him when he visited my university.

 

[Greg Tito]

Have any of you heard of or read "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"? It was "written" by a guy who was in a similar vegetative state, and could not move at all except for his eyelids. That's right, this guy dictated a book with eye blinks. They've made a movie of his story as well, though I haven't seen it. There are also stories of coma patients who wake up and talk about how they were awake the whole time. I think the headline for this article should be "Scientists may be able to communicate with coma victims", as some of them are absolutely awake.

You know what the weird thing is? My wife put that movie on our Netflix queue and I just got the email that it was being sent to my house right before i read your post...

Freaky.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

That last line really got me thinking.

"These people are awake and trapped in their disfunctional bodies."

That's......just horrible. I'm gonna sleep really badly tonight.

 

[TheMadTypist]

I can see where it would be a bleeding hell for everyone else, but I'd be fine with being kept alive in a "Locked In" state.

But if anybody tries that Facilitated Communication shit on me... well, I'm not going to be able to do anything, that's kind of the point, but they better not try, all the same.

 

[Dogstile]

Does anyone think it is extremely cruel to ask someone who is in a vegetative state to think about playing tennis and walking?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Have any of you heard of or read "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"? It was "written" by a guy who was in a similar vegetative state, and could not move at all except for his eyelids. That's right, this guy dictated a book with eye blinks. They've made a movie of his story as well, though I haven't seen it. There are also stories of coma patients who wake up and talk about how they were awake the whole time. I think the headline for this article should be "Scientists may be able to communicate with coma victims", as some of them are absolutely awake.

A vegetative state typically refers to a person with no brain activity. Are you sure he just hadn't lost almost all motor skills from a stroke or aphasia?

 

[Zerbye]

A vegetative state typically refers to a person with no brain activity. Are you sure he just hadn't lost almost all motor skills from a stroke or aphasia?

Bestrafe Mich

You're right, the guy in the story wasn't in a "persistent vegetative state". It usually refers to a person with reduced brain activity (as compared with "Brain Death", where no brain activity is present). He was technically suffering from "Locked-in Syndrome", which came from a stroke. However, aphasia (the inability to speak) is very different from being almost completely paralyzed.

Great, now we've got 4 different brain states that look nearly identical to the outside observer:
Coma
Persistent vegetative state
Locked-in Syndrome
Brain Death

 

[Danny Ocean]

Jesus. Imagine just sitting there for years.

Imagine hearing them talking about killing you, and then hearing the machine switch off.





I can only imagine how that must feel. Which makes this comment:

Keeping people who are in a vegetative state alive should be a crime.

All the more surprising. Or perhaps I'm still confused as to what a vegetative state actually is.

 

[Rainboq]

Jesus. Imagine just sitting there for years.

Imagine hearing them talking about killing you, and then hearing the machine switch off.

Well, that's the latest form of torture now...

 

[That One Six]

That metallica video is awesome.

S...O...S...

And then there are the idiots who don't like the video because of the words in the background that "screw up" the music.

 

[hansari]

This study implies that these people are awake and trapped in their dysfunctional bodies.

Geesh...could you imagine the state someone would be in if they were in that position. Stuck like that for years with no other saving grace besides their imagination...

They'd be like the Mad Hatter when they woke up...part of me hopes this isn't true for that reason...sad to see a loved one so helpless...what about seeing them all loony?

 

[gigastrike]

Suddenly, pulling the plug just became a lot more complicated.

 

[JLrep]

Hook those people up to WoW.

 

[Omikron009]

One. I love that song. I also respect it for the number of times it kicked my ass in guitar hero 3 before I finally beat it. I failed it once 93% of the way through.

Oh yeah, and that coma stuff is pretty scary too.

 

[Lucifron]

New implications concerning euthanasia? Why I say that finding out just got easier in some cases, e.g:

"Do you want to die?"

"Tennis tennis tennis tennis tennis tennis!!!"

Sorry, I had to.

You are forgiven. I lol'd.

Now we can simply ask people what they want. Euthanasia just became easier.

 

[Sayvara]

Did you read the study, or even my brief explanation of it?

Did you? Let me quote from it:

Of the 54 patients enrolled in the study, 5 were able to willfully modulate their brain activity. In three of these patients, additional bedside testing revealed some sign of awareness, but in the other two patients, no voluntary behavior could be detected by means of clinical assessment. One patient was able to use our technique to answer yes or no to questions during functional MRI; however, it remained impossible to establish any form of communication at the bedside.

Reading the study I find no signs of double-blinding, meaning that the results are wide open to observer bias, which leaves doubts about the veracity. Further more, what is being said in the article about possible residual awareness is a very long way to go to the nightmare scenario you are embellishing the post with about fully aware people trapped in their bodies.

Let me quote from a comment on Owen's 2006 report [http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMe0909667v1] (boldface added by me):

Research on clinically undetected consciousness is easily subject to overinterpretation and sensationalism that the authors certainly do not intend. In discussions with families and in physicians' capacity as spokespersons to society on these matters, three points should be emphasized. First, in this study, brain activation was detected in very few patients. Second, activation was found only in some patients with traumatic brain injury, not in patients with global ischemia and anoxia. Third, cortical activation does not provide evidence of an internal "stream of thought" (William James's term), memory, self-awareness, reflection, synthesis of experience, symbolic representations, or ? just as important ? anxiety, despair, or awareness of one's predicament. Without judging the quality of any person's inner life, we cannot be certain whether we are interacting with a sentient, much less a competent, person. Moreover, persons who look to this study to justify continued and unqualified life support in all unresponsive patients are missing the focus of the findings.

I also note that Owen's 2006 report - of which this new report is a continued study - faced criticism and did not pass through peer review unchallenged.

So I stand by my word: people are way too eager to jump at this and try to make a nightmare come true, for reasons I cannot imagine. Nevertheless I find the behaviour sickening and being a very unappropriate response to a scientific report.

/S

 

[Sayvara]

Sorry for bumping this old thread, but some new development in the releated case might be of interrest to y'all:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/02/bookwriting_man_in_coma_flunks.html

But further tests show the man, Rom Houben, was unable to correctly identify simple words and objects presented to him by researchers, his neurologist Steven Laureys tells NPR's Jon Hamilton.

[...]

Houben had passed previous quizzes, but the difference this time was that a facilitator, who helped him type answers on a computer screen, wasn't present when the mystery objects and words were presented.

The fact that so many jumped on this story, even though it was readily apparent - and then confirmed with a really simple test - that it was the assistant that was typing, shows how incredibly strong the urge to accept these kinds of stories are.

I wonder why this is. Why are we so eager to make these horror stories come true?

/S

 

[Sayvara]

God that would be horrible...

So would being chased by zombies [http://www.l4d.com/]... or have a virus suddenly wipe put 99% of the world's population [http://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/stand:_the_complete__uncut_edition_the.html]... or being forced to spend your entire life in a labyrinth eating pills while being chased by ghosts [http://pacman.com]...

...but none of that becomes true just because they would be horrible. So why are people so eager to see the horror come true?

/S