Thursday, September 21, 2006
Buried alive in your own skull ~ by Michael N.
Have you ever seen a human vegetable on TV or in real life? Did you wonder if they still had the power to think for themselves, but they just couldn’t move or speak? Well in some cases like this one a woman from England was in a horrific car accident and showed no signs of awareness. The doctors then declared her vegetative she stayed that way for five mounts. Then they put her in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner and found when they asked her to imagine playing tennis and walking through her home. The scanner blew up with patterns of language, movement, and navigation different from the brains of healthy people. She was really awake inside her head. Without this scanner no one would have ever knew she could still hear and think for herself.
This technology (FMRI) has only been around for a decade. When I hear this it makes me think of how many people have pulled the plug on their family members because the doctors declared them vegetative. What if these people could still think and feel emotion while their being put to sleep? Imagine that one minute you are there and the next you are not like when you’re in the machine your thoughts can be seen and when you are not there invisible. How would you feel if you could hear and know you’re a live, but no one knew they all thought that you were brain dead? It’s like the old sayings if a tree falls, and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Does a vegetable not matter if no animal perceives it? In the city, the puzzle is different. What falls when a car jumps a curb is a person, not a tree. If nobody sees her thinking, is she a vegetable? Or should the rest of us animals look harder?
Most hospitals don’t even have equipment that can find trapped souls like the English patient. Its horrible that the reality of your mental life depends on which hospital you go to because one my say you are a vegetable and inside your mind you know your not, but there’s nothing you can do. I believe this technology is helping a great deal of people because one life saved is worth all the trouble of the research.
http://www.slate.com/id/2149182
Have you ever seen a human vegetable on TV or in real life? Did you wonder if they still had the power to think for themselves, but they just couldn’t move or speak? Well in some cases like this one a woman from England was in a horrific car accident and showed no signs of awareness. The doctors then declared her vegetative she stayed that way for five mounts. Then they put her in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner and found when they asked her to imagine playing tennis and walking through her home. The scanner blew up with patterns of language, movement, and navigation different from the brains of healthy people. She was really awake inside her head. Without this scanner no one would have ever knew she could still hear and think for herself.
This technology (FMRI) has only been around for a decade. When I hear this it makes me think of how many people have pulled the plug on their family members because the doctors declared them vegetative. What if these people could still think and feel emotion while their being put to sleep? Imagine that one minute you are there and the next you are not like when you’re in the machine your thoughts can be seen and when you are not there invisible. How would you feel if you could hear and know you’re a live, but no one knew they all thought that you were brain dead? It’s like the old sayings if a tree falls, and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Does a vegetable not matter if no animal perceives it? In the city, the puzzle is different. What falls when a car jumps a curb is a person, not a tree. If nobody sees her thinking, is she a vegetable? Or should the rest of us animals look harder?
Most hospitals don’t even have equipment that can find trapped souls like the English patient. Its horrible that the reality of your mental life depends on which hospital you go to because one my say you are a vegetable and inside your mind you know your not, but there’s nothing you can do. I believe this technology is helping a great deal of people because one life saved is worth all the trouble of the research.
http://www.slate.com/id/2149182
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Really good post Michael.
I'd like for everyone to come prepared to talk about what "quality of life" means - in this case and others. Is there a point when "extraordinary measures" are just cruel? What is a living will? How might these things affect a relationship and reflect your religious and ethical beliefs. Do ethics and/or religion trump medical theory?
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I'd like for everyone to come prepared to talk about what "quality of life" means - in this case and others. Is there a point when "extraordinary measures" are just cruel? What is a living will? How might these things affect a relationship and reflect your religious and ethical beliefs. Do ethics and/or religion trump medical theory?
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