Reply #1: The problem with insults to the brain [View All]

[Warpy]

is that you don't know exactly what you've got to work with until some time after the incident. The window for rapid improvement is about six months, with gradual improvement possible for the next two years. Then what you see is generally what you get with a PVS patient. (This doesn't apply to comatose patients, completely different thing.)

Artificial hydration and feeding, along with mechanical ventilation, may be necessary during this period. The problem is that once they're started, they're damnably difficult to stop. That's why we have a definition of death as being brain death, with no spontaneous respirations along with no higher brain function.

The problem with Ms. Schiavo is that she did improve during the initial period and retained enough brainstem function to breathe on her own. That is all she has. Everything else is random and involuntary, no matter what interpretation her parents have put onto it. Her muscles are atrophied, her joints contracted beyond use.

Let's hope she is finally allowed to go, and that hospice is allowed to err on the side of comfort.