
Nerve implant 'restores consciousness' to man in vegetative state (2017) - Jaruzel
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/25/nerve-implant-restores-consciousness-to-man-in-vegetative-state
======
largbae
This article is about a year old. Here is a later article about the patient's
death a few months after treatment.

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/05/scientists-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/05/scientists-
concealed-death-of-patient-at-centre-of-vegetative-state-breakthrough)

~~~
dean177
It’s kind of dishonest to share that without also adding that the patient died
of a lung infection.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I don’t think it’s dishonest. Can you explain why you think it must be?

And I will add I think the word “dishonest” gets used a bit too much on HN in
particular. It imputes intent when such is very difficult to guess reliably.

~~~
browsercoin
OP intentionally left out the context to discount this study and the team
intentionally did not disclose exactly because of deniers like OP that will
use the lung infection as a crutch for their main argument: any effort on
vegetative state rehabilitation is bad.

~~~
erikpukinskis
None of that was stated. I don't even see how it was implied. You're reading
way too much into it.

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finnh
Amazingly, ambien has had a similar effect for a small group of patients,
returning them to consciousness for hours at a time after months or years of
coma

[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-
wake-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-
minimally-conscious.html)

~~~
anon49124
Yup, basically the movie plot of _Awakenings._ Also, a family member of mine,
whom was not catatonic, tried it for post-stroke fatigue/pain/neuropathy/brain
fog to get away from gabapentin&pregabalin.

~~~
caycep
It was levodopa for Awakenings, no? Unless I'm remembering the scene w/ Robin
Williams and the lecturer wrong

~~~
finnh
L-dopa, yup. I don’t think GP meant actually ambien.

Also GP if you check this - what are the downsides of gabapentin your relative
was trying to get away from? I thought that was a fairly benign drug, even for
long-term use.

~~~
philote
I knew someone who took it for a while, and drowsiness, memory issues, balance
issues, and depression were all pretty bad alone, much less combined. And
getting off of it has to be gradual due to rebound pain.

------
hprotagonist
Or maybe not:

 _The neuroimaging work is interesting from a research point of view, but what
ultimately matters in a study like this are the clinical results. These were
promising, but I think the headlines are over-optimistic. This is very much a
preliminary study and the results seem mixed to me._

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/09/28/co...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/09/28/consciousness-
vagus-stimulation/)

~~~
nonbel
Yea, after learning that the patient died a few months later from a lung
infection (after being kept alive for 15 years) yet the doctors/researchers
claim there is "no link", it makes this whole story sound like BS. I could see
"a link is unknown", or something like that but concluding "no link" from that
info is impossible and even unreasonable.

I'll even allow that by stimulating the vagus nerve he had more unconscious
movements than before and they misinterpreted it as responding to the
environment, so its not totally malicious. But that team has given a very
strong reason not to trust anything they say.

~~~
nonbel
I said nearly the exact same thing upthread. I don't get the difference.

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rootusrootus
This serves as a reminder that I need to make sure my wishes are well
documented and understood by my family that under no circumstances should they
keep my body alive for 15 years in similar circumstances. And especially don't
try to give me a tiny bit more consciousness, so that I may suffer.

~~~
stale2002
Sure, if you want to choose death, that's your choice.

But you should also be aware that many many other people would choose life.

~~~
joshgel
This is 100% true in an absolute sense. You either choose life or death.

However, it misses a huge amount of nuance. Some of the nuanced questions
include: what qualifies as alive? \- brain dead? \- blood pressure only being
maintained with medications? \- requiring permanent ventilator to breath? \-
'locked in' syndrome where you have literally no way of communicating with the
world? \- combinations of the above? what quality of life would you accept?
does how you die matter?

It's not as easy as deciding to just 'choose death'. Sure, most everyone would
choose to live in a healthy body without pain, but that really isn't a
realistic choice for most patients who are making that choice at that point in
their lives.

Either way, whatever you choose, you should document what you prefer to make
things easier on your loved ones.

------
nihil75
I wonder if it really is his consciousness or just automated responses from a
juiced-up brain.

~~~
cambaceres
So are you

------
xtracto
Reminded me of the controversial Terri Shiavo case(1), where the parents
fought till the end to avoid her death.

(1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case)

~~~
acchow
> "staff at the Pinellas Park hospice facility disconnected the feeding tube
> on March 18, 2005, and Schiavo died on March 31, 2005."

So, they starved her to death over 13 days? How do they know she wasn't
experiencing this as torture?

~~~
wahern
Because it was repeatedly and conclusively shown at that point that her brain
had atrophied to half its size. She was gone. The reason the situation almost
devolved into an armed stand-off between the courts and the executive branch
is because every judge (Florida and Federal) who looked at the case--that is,
those officials presented with all the evidence from both sides--quickly
understood the reality; whereas the politicians hundreds and thousands of
miles away who hadn't the first clue about the facts had other objectives in
mind.

The subsequent autopsy confirmed what was already known. But there was never
any accountability because by then the media had moved on.

Terry Schiavo is not the case to point to when questioning the science and
treatment of PVS.

~~~
sandworm101
It was a fight between scientists and non-scientists. The scientists saw the
scans of her head that showed a void where there should have been brain. The
non-scientists looked at a handful of home movies where here random movements
and facial expressions occasionally lined up to make her look aware. Such
debate between scientific evaluation and layperson "gut feelings" predate so
many of today's debates re climate.

It was also a generational fight. Her husband, the normal go-to for medical
decisions was on one side, and her parents on the other. The parents wanted
control over their daughter. They could not accept the widespread default
that, for most all medical/legal matters, spouses trump parents. And this was
Florida. So the "rights" of the older generation were given greater play in
the courts than would have happened in other states.

~~~
nonbel
>"The scientists saw the scans of her head that showed a void where there
should have been brain."

People with "no" (very small) brains due to hydrocephalus have been discovered
who are successful mathematics students and public servants. So, not sure the
scientists are right here. As long as the brain is shrinking slow enough it
may not be a huge deal in terms of mental ability.

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/70204/man-without-
brain](http://mentalfloss.com/article/70204/man-without-brain)

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/oct/02/research.h...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/oct/02/research.highereducation1)

~~~
sandworm101
Nope. She had a medical problem related to medication. Her brain went from
normal to tiny in the course of perhaps 24 hours. This was not just a small
brain, this was a normal brain in which huge areas died away due to lack of
oxygen.

~~~
jjjensen90
She suffered cardiac arrest from low serum potassium levels (hypokalemia) and
she suffered massive brain damage as a result of the lack of oxygen to the
brain. It was definitely a sudden, abnormal, and catastrophic change in brain
size.

