Annie offers us this link about new ways of approaching vegetative states. As these sorts of things become more common, questions about equating loss of consciousness with death start to get fuzzy.
This is an interesting article, and I am surprised that this type of thing would be possible after 15 years. This got me thinking about quality of life and how/if it would be possible to have a good quality of life in a vegetative state--but I guess that would be different for each person. Personally, I don't think that a vegetative state is a good quality of life, especially for 15 years. However, I don't see how the vegetative person would be able to tell their loved ones that they want to give up or keep fighting, and if the family/doctor gave up on the patient when they didn't want to stop fighting, it would be devastating. Even with this advancement in medicine, I still doubt that the person will ever be able to regain all their mental functions and live a good quality of life--although we can hope. This reminds me of what happened with my grandmother before she died, except she was unconscious. She had told my grandpa earlier that she never wanted to live in a vegetative state, where she lost all independence. I just think of this as an example of how her independence was so important to her that without it, she did not feel like she had a good quality life--its different for everybody.
The quality of life is so low that it really isn't worth living, and I'm not sure this guy would even meet most definitions of sentience. Even plants can respond to stimuli. This man is dead but his body hasn't realized it yet.
This is an interesting article, and I am surprised that this type of thing would be possible after 15 years. This got me thinking about quality of life and how/if it would be possible to have a good quality of life in a vegetative state--but I guess that would be different for each person. Personally, I don't think that a vegetative state is a good quality of life, especially for 15 years. However, I don't see how the vegetative person would be able to tell their loved ones that they want to give up or keep fighting, and if the family/doctor gave up on the patient when they didn't want to stop fighting, it would be devastating. Even with this advancement in medicine, I still doubt that the person will ever be able to regain all their mental functions and live a good quality of life--although we can hope. This reminds me of what happened with my grandmother before she died, except she was unconscious. She had told my grandpa earlier that she never wanted to live in a vegetative state, where she lost all independence. I just think of this as an example of how her independence was so important to her that without it, she did not feel like she had a good quality life--its different for everybody.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, but it does not change my way of seeing death much, as I don't personally define death in terms of consciousness.
ReplyDeleteThe quality of life is so low that it really isn't worth living, and I'm not sure this guy would even meet most definitions of sentience. Even plants can respond to stimuli. This man is dead but his body hasn't realized it yet.
ReplyDelete