Printer-Friendly Version

Page 4 of 5

--Recovery after eight years - The first thing Conley Holbrook said after rousing from a PVS in 1991 was "Momma." He then identified the two men who had beaten him unconscious with a log on Nov. 27, 1982. Holbrook awoke while he was hospitalized for pneumonia; and

-- Recovery after 18 years - In 1983, Patti White Bull of South Dakota was diagnosed as being in a coma or PVS due to complications from a Caesarean section. Two months later, her husband and other family members removed her from life support. On Christmas Day 1999, White Bull woke up and asked to see her children. A day later, she was walking around her nursing home room with assistance.

A 1996 study published in the British Medical Journal found that 43 percent of patients in the United Kingdom thought to be in a PVS had been misdiagnosed. Of the 40 patients whose cases were reviewed, 17 were later found to be "alert, aware and often able to express a simple wish."

A 1993 study of 49 patients found that 18 of them, or 37 percent, "were diagnosed inaccurately.

"Errors in diagnosis may result from confusion in terminology, lack of extended observation of patients, and lack of skill or training in the assessment of neurologically devastated patients," according to the study, published in "Neurology," the journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Stevens said this is all the evidence that should be needed to call for a higher standard when it comes to diagnosing a patient as being in a persistent or permanent vegetative state.

"Unfortunately, right now, it's a circular diagnosis," Stevens explained. "Doctors who are advocates for it are willing to state absolutely that a patient is in PVS and then, when the patient comes out of PVS, then they use circular reasoning and say, 'Well, then they weren't in it at all.'"

Cranford admitted that a positron emission tomography, or PET scan, could have been conducted to confirm or disprove the diagnosis in the Schiavo case. The test measures the metabolism of the cerebral cortex and patients in a verifiable PVS typically have less than 50 percent of the PET scan activity of a healthy brain.

"The only reliable PET scan in the country that could do this would be in New York City. And had I known this case would have gone to this point, I would have advocated that (PET scan) three years ago during the evidentiary hearing," Cranford said. "But we never knew Congress would get involved."

Cranford said he also did not recommend the test because he believed that neither Terri's husband, nor her parents would want her moved to New York City. That explanation troubled Stevens.

"If you cannot make a firm and absolute diagnosis, you shouldn't make a firm and absolute decision about what you're going to do with those patients based on that diagnosis," Stevens said.

The Christian bio-ethicist also believes that the circumstances under which a patient, like Terri Schiavo, can be denied nutrition and hydration should be much more limited.

>> Continued -- Page 1 2 3 4 5

Copyright © 1998-2005 CNSNews.com - Cybercast News Service