Monday, September 11, 2006
AN EXCELLENT POST!
Too Soon? by Rebecca M.
About five years ago my father suffered an injury in which his brain was deprived of oxygen for an amount of time that put him into a "vegetative" state. Knowing this, imagine my surprise when I read the headline "'Vegetative' Woman's Brain Shows Surprising Activity" in the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090700978.html?nav=hcmodule ). I ignored this headline at first because it made me uncomfortable. I looked around for some other articles. After reading about a Giant Panda and a few other things, I decided to come back to this one.
Just reading the headline was enough to send my world spinning. It made me wonder if my dad knew what was going on during his last few days in the hospital. After reading the article, I have decided that he probably did not.Rob Stein's article focuses on the observations of a few neurologists on one woman, with a very specific situation and injury, in England. Although the prospect of some kind of brain activity or consciousness after a brain injury are exciting signs, the story seemed a little premature to me. Science is founded in evidence and most importantly, in repeated trials. This "experiment" seemed to have been done very spontaneously. The article is very optimisitic about what this brain activity could mean for future brain injury patients, but personally I wonder if it will change anything at all... or if it should change anything. If a person's situation will never change is it right to keep them alive to perform experiments? I am afraid that in some cases, this might happen.
One of the most important and most interesting things in this article was that even if there is a certain amount of brain activity, no one knows if it is a sign of whether or not the person will recover. Maybe this activity is just random (although in this study it seemed to coorespond to what the doctors were saying).
I understand that this could be a pretty big breakthrough in neurology, but I must admit that I was a little disappointed and surprised that this "study" was published in the Washington Post when there was only one test subject. Perhaps, I feel this way only because my own emotions were involved. As a science major, I think that the Washington Post should have waited for more conclusive evidence before making this subject public.
Too Soon? by Rebecca M.
About five years ago my father suffered an injury in which his brain was deprived of oxygen for an amount of time that put him into a "vegetative" state. Knowing this, imagine my surprise when I read the headline "'Vegetative' Woman's Brain Shows Surprising Activity" in the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090700978.html?nav=hcmodule ). I ignored this headline at first because it made me uncomfortable. I looked around for some other articles. After reading about a Giant Panda and a few other things, I decided to come back to this one.
Just reading the headline was enough to send my world spinning. It made me wonder if my dad knew what was going on during his last few days in the hospital. After reading the article, I have decided that he probably did not.Rob Stein's article focuses on the observations of a few neurologists on one woman, with a very specific situation and injury, in England. Although the prospect of some kind of brain activity or consciousness after a brain injury are exciting signs, the story seemed a little premature to me. Science is founded in evidence and most importantly, in repeated trials. This "experiment" seemed to have been done very spontaneously. The article is very optimisitic about what this brain activity could mean for future brain injury patients, but personally I wonder if it will change anything at all... or if it should change anything. If a person's situation will never change is it right to keep them alive to perform experiments? I am afraid that in some cases, this might happen.
One of the most important and most interesting things in this article was that even if there is a certain amount of brain activity, no one knows if it is a sign of whether or not the person will recover. Maybe this activity is just random (although in this study it seemed to coorespond to what the doctors were saying).
I understand that this could be a pretty big breakthrough in neurology, but I must admit that I was a little disappointed and surprised that this "study" was published in the Washington Post when there was only one test subject. Perhaps, I feel this way only because my own emotions were involved. As a science major, I think that the Washington Post should have waited for more conclusive evidence before making this subject public.
