Reply #26: some medical opinions

[KaliTracy]

From San Francisco Chronicle: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/23/MNGGABTH351.DTL

"Defining the differences in these states of being is the work of neurologists such as Dr. Wade Smith, director of the Neurocritical Care Unit at the UCSF Medical Center. He regularly teaches a course on the subject to young medical students, many of whom are entering a lifetime of counseling families on difficult choices of life and death in the midst of trauma and tragedy.

Without her feeding tube or water, and barring legal intervention, Schiavo probably has less than two weeks to live. But in a vegetative state, does she feel hunger, thirst or pain? "As a neurologist, I would say no," said Smith.

A person who is unconscious will feel no more hunger or pain than a patient who has undergone general anesthesia. The awareness functions of the higher brain are no longer a factor. "It is why anesthesia works," Smith said. "

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From MedPage
http://www.medpagetoday.com/tbindex.cfm?tbid=753

Patients in a persistent vegetative state do not feel pain, nor do they "suffer," says Michael De Georgia, MD, head of the neurology-neurosurgery intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation here.


Pain, as well as suffering, requires consciousness, which is lacking in a person in a persistent vegetative state, says Dr. De Georgia.


"Certainly these patients don't suffer," he adds. "Suffering is really that whole emotional aspect of pain: fear, anxiety, panic surrounding pain. You have to have consciousness to experience these emotions. So just as a person in a persistent vegetative state can't experience pain because of a lack of consciousness, they also don't suffer."

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That said -- elderly people and animals often stop eating prior to letting go and dying. My husband's grandmother is in this state right now, (got pneumonia last week, and was in hospital for several days -- is back at nursing home now, and has refused solid food for several days -- drinking minimally) -- though some are treating it as depression, others have warned his mother that this is the "final" step...