'Vegetative' patient communicates

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20268044

by equilibrium • 14 years ago

47 16 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

martinwnet2• 14 years ago

Having seen this type of story debunked before, I feel the quotes in the post title should be around the word "communicates".

I'm not sure how conclusive the evidence is based on the article.

Nursie• 14 years ago

At least this time its brain scans rather than a hopeful relative interpreting twitches or eye movements.

martinwnet2• 14 years ago

It shows more promise, but I have no idea how they manage to get from brain scans to (quoting the article headline) "[patient] says 'I'm not in pain'".

mherdeg• 14 years ago

Well, we'll have to see the paper to know more.

For an example of one of the classic kinds of "debunking" that this kind of research tends to get, see "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction" ( http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf, PDF)

rwallace2• 14 years ago

I really hope you're right. The idea that someone in that sort of condition, apparently beyond further harm, could actually have been conscious for all those years, makes the average horror story look optimistic.

nsxwolf2• 14 years ago

We don't know that such a person couldn't eventually enter an inner world where they find a kind of peace and fulfillment. It doesn't necessarily have to be a continual conscious horror of being frozen in a hospital bed.

jahewson• 14 years ago

But the British neuroscientist Prof Adrian Owen - who led the team at the Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario - said Mr Routley was clearly not vegetative.

This article is just another piece of science-sensationalism from the BBC.

gjm11• 14 years ago

You're implying that the headline talks about a vegetative patient but the article has an expert saying the patient isn't really vegetative?

Not fair. What the article alleges is that Scott Routley's state (1) would have been classed as "vegetative" according to previously standard criteria but (2) is shown not to be by the new MRI-based approach that Prof Owen's team is using.

In other words: that meeting the current diagnostic standards for vegetativeness (or whatever the right noun is) is, according to new work, consistent with being conscuious, self-aware and capable of communication given the right equipment.

If that's true, then the article isn't sensationalistic at all.

Of course it might not be true -- but if you want to convince readers that it's likely not to be, you'd better give some evidence that actually addresses the point, which your out-of-context quotation doesn't.

tehwebguy• 14 years ago

A more correct headline might have said, "Previously considered vegetative patient shows apparent consciousness"

'Vegetative' patient communicates

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