Science Forums 2

[paigetheoracle]

An article appeared in the British press last week about people in comatose states being able to respond as though conscious, even though physically unresponsive. Another article has now appeared suggesting that brain damaged patients respond to sleeping pills in a way that returns them to mobility and allows them to communicate too.

This reminds me of the Encephilitis patients mentioned in the film and the book it was based on by Oliver Sacks, 'Awakenings', who retuned to normal after treatment by revolutionary treatment before sadly returning to a vegetative state.

It also made me think of Catatonia sufferers and the use of muscle relaxants to relieve the perpetual, convulsive spasm or 'stress reaction' they go into - hence sleeping pills being used on the South African patients with such success (living rigor mortis state).

It also reminded me of the Victorians fear of being buried alive (air pipes to the surface/ pulleys and bells to signal with), and how there might well be some justification for this belief, given this new evidence (Edgar Allen Poe theme). It also ties in with people being declared dead and then coming round in the morgue (see Fortean Times), plus recent cases of people reporting being fully conscious during operations (anaesthesia acting like curare - paralysing victim but not necessarily killing them).

All of these cases seem to indicate that our methods of deciding who is dead and who is not are nowhere as foolproof as we thought - likewise that paralysis and brain damage means A) patients will never recover and B) that coma means brain dead. On top of this perhaps what we assume is vegetative, is in fact a kind of tension, rather than irreversible brain damage and drug induced relaxation techniques 'might' work across the spectrum on those seemingly paralysed or brain damaged, through illness or injury.

Exciting times! Thoughts on this from the medical profession?