The Vegetative State and Euthanasia
Much media attention has been directed at the very practical use of euthanasia or assisted suicide on patients who are in a vegetative state or irreversible coma. The truth is that a significant number of such cases actually recover. This essay is devoted to those types, some very young, who would have been killed if euthanasia/assisted suicide had been legalized.
Let's begin our consideration with a nine-year-old named Ryan Atencio. He was taken off life-support systems, except for a feeding tube, after being in a vegetative state following a massive head injury in a December 10, 1988 car accident. "There was no brain function," said Dr. Eustaquio Abay at St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Witchita, Kansas. "Three or four times we'd seen the pulse go down to zero -- no circulation at all to the brain for 30 minutes on end." Yet, on January 19, 1989, Ryan squeezed his mother's hand, opened his eyes, and came back to life, so to speak (Boy).
Mitchell Berman, also a 9-year-old, was comatose for 5 months due to hemalytic-uremic syndrome, and was not expected to survive. On May 31, 1991, Mitchell spoke his first words since he went into a coma December 31, 1990. "I want a hot dog," he told his mother. Since then, his progress has been phenomenal, said Dr. Geof McPhee, director of pediatrics at New Medico Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center of the Gulf Coast in Slidell, Louisiana. "If he does have residual deficits, I don't think it's gonna slow this kid down"(Boys).
Yolanda Blake, a 53-year-old New Jersey woman, woke from a coma on December 15, 1990, just one day after a judge ruled that the hospital need not follow the request of the woman's fr...
... middle of paper ...
...ED:
"Author recounts nine-day coma that 'transformed my life", Leslie Walters, Minnesota Women's Press, 7/16-29/ 89, p. 9.
"Boy who was 'gone' opens his eyes and squeezes mom's hand", Seattle Post-Intelligencer (United Press International Report), 1/26/89, p. A3
"Boy's complaints welcome after coma," The (FargoMoorhead) Forum (AP Report), 6/9/91, p. A17
"Extraordinary awakening," ABCNews.com, 1/4/2000
"Rare procedure helps comatose woman deliver healthy baby", The Billings (MT) Gazette (AP Report), 12/11/88, p. A4.
"State Makes Public Videotape in Right-to-Die Case", The New York Times National, 2/5/91, P. A16
"Woman Denied Food Awakes From Coma", Liz Townsend, National Right to Life News, 1/8/91, pp. 1 and 24.
"Woman in right-to-die case 'is better"', Karen Brandon, Kansas City Star, 1/11/91.1
The first patient I saw was a 14 month old boy who sustained a non-accidental head injury. He underwent surgery in July that relieved the excess pressure and fluid around his brain, resulting in him becoming a left hemiplegic.
Kemp, Joe. “Fetus of pregnant, brain-dead Texas woman ‘distinctly abnormal’: lawyers.” NYDailyNews. New York Daily News. 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2014.
In 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan lapsed into an irreversible coma from an auto accident in Jasper County, Missouri. Cruzan was discovered lying face down in a ditch without detectable respiratory or cardiac function. Paramedics were able to restore her breathing and heartbeat at the accident site, and she was transported to a hospital in an unconscious state. An attending neurosurgeon diagnosed her as having sustained cerebral injuries combined with significant lack of oxygen. The estimated length of the period without oxygen was twelve to fourteen minutes. (Permanent brain damage generally results after six minutes without oxygen.) After the accident Nancy was not breathing on her own and was connected to a machine, five days later she was breathing on her own and the respirator was disconnected. She remained in a coma for approximately three weeks and then progressed to an unconscious state in which she was able to orally ingest some nutrition. She was moved out of ICU into a private room where the family tried on a daily basis to get a response. In order to ease feeding and further the recovery, surgeons implanted a gastrostomy feeding and hydration tube in Cruzan with the consent of her then husband. Nancy's parents Joe (Lester) and Joyce stayed at the hospital around the clock sleeping on couches and chairs. Her sister Chris visited as much as she could while her two daughters Miranda and Angie were in school. Nancy and Chris were be...
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that affects the brain causing people to have seizures. A seizure is a big disruption of electrical communication between neurons, leading to the temporary release of excessive energy in a synchronized form Epilepsy is very unpredictable. Having a seizure disorder doesn't mean that you can only have one type of seizure. People can have many different types of seizures; it can vary on the person. In some cases depending on the type of seizures someone may have they can grow out of them. (“Epilepsy Foundation." What Is Epilepsy? N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.)
What is most disturbing is that these policies, if enforced, would prevent profoundly brain-damaged and dementia patients from receiving tube-supplied food and water because such care is considered medical treatment.
The right to assisted suicide is a significant topic that concerns people all over the United States. The debates go back and forth about whether a dying patient has the right to die with the assistance of a physician. Some are against it because of religious and moral reasons. Others are for it because of their compassion and respect for the dying. Physicians are also divided on the issue. They differ where they place the line that separates relief from dying--and killing. For many the main concern with assisted suicide lies with the competence of the terminally ill. Many terminally ill patients who are in the final stages of their lives have requested doctors to aid them in exercising active euthanasia. It is sad to realize that these people are in great agony and that to them the only hope of bringing that agony to a halt is through assisted suicide.When people see the word euthanasia, they see the meaning of the word in two different lights. Euthanasia for some carries a negative connotation; it is the same as murder. For others, however, euthanasia is the act of putting someone to death painlessly, or allowing a person suffering from an incurable and painful disease or condition to die by withholding extreme medical measures. But after studying both sides of the issue, a compassionate individual must conclude that competent terminal patients should be given the right to assisted suicide in order to end their suffering, reduce the damaging financial effects of hospital care on their families, and preserve the individual right of people to determine their own fate.
There has been very little literature presented on Physician Assistant Suicide and its relationship particularly to psychology, PAS is my opinion is in fact a psychological issue. Psychology by definition is a discipline that studies both the human mind and behavior and seeks to understand and provide explanation pertaining to thought, emotion, and behavior (Cherry, 2011). Applications of psychology can range from mental health, self- health, and a myriad of areas that can affect health and daily life (Cherry, 2011).
Epilepsy, also known as “seizure disorder,” or “seizure attack,” is the fourth most common neurological disorder known to mankind, affecting an estimated 2.3 million adults and 467,711 children in the United States. Unfortunately this disorder is becoming far more common and widespread worldwide. This staggering number of cases of people suffering from Epilepsy also involves an average growth rate of 150,000 new cases each year in the United States alone. Generally, many of the people who develop who are a part of the new are mainly either young children or older adults. Your brain communicates through chemical and electrical signals that are all specialized for specific tasks. However, through the process of communication, chemical messengers, also known as neurotransmitters can suddenly fail, resulting in what is known as a seizure attack. Epilepsy occurs when a few too many brain cells become excited, or activated simultaneously, so that the brain cannot function properly and to it’s highest potential. Epilepsy is characterized when there is an abnormal imbalance in the chemical activity of the brain, leading to a disruption in the electrical activity of the brain. This disruption specifically occurs in the central nervous system (CNS), which is the part of the nervous system that contains the brain and spinal cord. This causes an interruption in communication between presynaptic neurons and postsynaptic neurons; between the axon of one neuron, the message sender and the dendrite of another neuron, the message recipient. Consequently, the effects that epileptic seizures may induce may range anywhere from mild to severe, life-threatening ramifications and complications. There are many different types of seizures associa...
Not everyone who has a seizure has epilepsy. Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent, unprovoked seizures. Unprovoked means that there is no immediate cause for the seizure, such as a fever, an infection of the brain, or head trauma. Nearly 10 percent of people will have a seizure during their lifetime; most of these are provoked seizures during an acute illness or condition. These people may never have epilepsy. There are two types of seizures people can have. One is partial seizure or focal they begin in one part of the brain. They cause varied symptoms auras which is a funny feeling in your stomach, staring, chewing, lip smacking, shaking, or stiffness in parts of the body. Generalized seizures are when the entire brain is effected. This causes loss consciousness. One type is grand mal is when the body stiffens and jerks. Another type is petit mal, which is momentary loss of consciousness without abnormal body movement. Some factors of this are infections of the brain this includes meningitis, encephalitis, and brain abscess. Strokes are also a risk of epilepsy. Also alcohol can cause seizures for heavy drinkers when they stop drinking abruptly (withdrawal seizures) and also have a good chance of epilepsy. Epilepsy can also cause brain tumors usually they are slow growing and don't affect them for years. Some other factors that cause epilepsy is age the risk of seizures is higher in young children. Also gender epilepsy is higher in males than in females. The most common treatment for epilepsy is the daily use of anticonvulsant or antiepilectic drugs to prevent seizures. These medications act on brain signals to limit hyperexcitability. While medications do not cure epilepsy, they allow many people to live normal, active lives. Other treatments are vagus nerve stimulation this treatment involves electronic stimulation of the brain using an implanted device like a pacemaker. Another is epilepsy surgery this is when a part of the brain that is causing the seizures is removed so that it prevents it from spreading to anther part of the brain.
Anorexia is a disorder that goes much deeper than the trite image pushed by the media. Anorexia occurs most often in young, adolescent females, can be caused by biological, socio-cultural, and psycho-developmental factors, causes considerable damage to the body and the heart, and treatment is not often attained and is long and difficult for the patient when it is.
Later, the doctors told me I had epilepsy, specifically the type known as grand mal. Immediately, the doctors put me on some medications to prevent the seizures. They also gave my parents a bunch of packets of information about epilepsy. When I got older, some of those packets informed me that 20-25 million people have suffered from an epileptic seizure. Many people grow out of childhood epilepsy or they take medicine to control it. However, there is still a risk of having a seizure even if you take medication. Over the past few years, I have become increasingly aware of the chance of a seizure at any time.
Epilepsy is a condition characterized by recurrent seizures which are unprovoked by any immediately identifiable cause (Hopkins & Shorvon, 1995). It is also known as a seizure disorder. A wide range of links and risk factors are associated with the condition, but most of the time the cause is unknown. Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders, affecting approximately two and half million people in the US and about 50 million worldwide. Though seizures can occur at any age, epilepsy is most commonly seen in children and the elderly. Most respond well to treatment and can control their seizures, but for some it is a chronic illness. A clinical diagnosis is the first step to finding a potential cure for the disorder.
Epilepsy is an ailment that expresses itself by an attack. An attack occurs because of an abrupt, temporary bother of the electric stimulus in the brains. That means that something goes wrong in the brains, a kind of short circuit. An attack can express itself in several ways. The most well known insult is the tonic-clonic one. Most of the time the person who experiences a tonic-clonic insult, falls down on the ground with arms and legs showing spasm. All muscles relax, so the bladder as well. That can be very embarrassing for the person after the attack. Besides that, epilepsy is different for every person. Usually after an attack, people don’t know that they had one. Yet, some people feel an attack coming. That is called an aura.
This paper is going to discuss the condition Epilepsy. Epilepsy is defined as a disorder of the brain characterized by the recurrence of unprovoked seizures (Shorvon, 2009). Epilepsy starts in your brain, the brain is like a computer, it is made up of a mass of cells, called neurons, which connect to each other in very complicated ways (Routh, 2004). Electrical messages are constantly being passed from one neuron to another down nerves to the muscles in the body (Mair, 2004). If a person has epilepsy, these cells sometimes send a sudden, unexpected burst of electrical impulses, which causes a seizure (Routh, 2004). When the seizure finishes the brain behaves normally again. For some people with epilepsy these seizures happen every day. For others they may happen only once or twice a year (Routh, 2004). There are over 40 different types of seizure and each person is slightly different, but there are a few common types (Routh, 2004). Generalized seizures which affect the whole brain and partial seizures which affect a small part of the brain (Miller, 2013). The most common types of ge...
Euthanasia and "Futile Care" & nbsp; Imagine visiting your 85-year-old mother in the hospital after she has a debilitating stroke. You find out that, in order to survive, she requires a feeding tube and antibiotics to fight an infection. She once told you that no matter what happens, she wants to live. But the doctor refuses further life-sustaining treatment. When you ask why, you are told, in effect, "The time has come for your mother to die.