medical question: how long could someone in a condition like Terri Schiavo

[Eric J in MN]

survive?

Suppose the courts had found the opposite, that she wanted to be kept alive indefinitely, and suppose there were limitless money to spend on that:

For how many years would someone in that situation probably survive?

[Tesibria]

1. allegedly, a normal lifespan

... so into her 60s - 70s or 80s

[moobu2]

2. A while back I read about someone in PVS that lived 37 years but

that was unusual. PVS patients don't have a very long life span and Terri has lived much longer than most already.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. The record is 74

but Mrs. Schiavo has been suffering increased problems in the last few years. I would guess that left alone maybe 45-50.

[flyingfysh]

4. her husband helped her live longer

He was referred to somewhere as a nursing home administrator's worst nightmare, because he was very demanding about the quality of care given his wife. During the early years of her condition, he took her to California to try an aggressive therapy regimen.

In all the years she was like this, she developed no bedsores - probably because the staff was scared of his reaction if anything like that happened.

[moobu2]

5. Here's the link to some PVS information and where I got the 37 year record

"(the longest PVS case on record is thirty-seven years), "

It's an interesting article with tons of info.

THE PERSISTENT VEGETATIVE STATE AND THE WITHDRAWAL OF NUTRITION AND HYDRATION

Robert Rakestraw is professor of theology at Bethel Seminary St. Paul, I cant vouch for it's acuracy but it looks like he's an expert with a religous background.

Dr. Rakestraw is an advocate of withdrawing nutrition and hydration from PVS patients when there's no hope for improvement.