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from the pathway-to-freedom-or-fate-worse-than-death? dept.
Surgery to embed a nerve-stimulating implant in a patient in a persistent vegetative state (15 years), resulted in the patient reverting to a "minimally conscious" state.
After lying in a vegetative state for 15 years, a 35-year-old male patient in France appears to have regained minimal consciousness following months of vagus nerve stimulation, researchers report today in Current Biology.
The patient, who suffered severe brain damage in a car crash, had shown no signs of awareness or improvement before. He made no apparent purposeful movements and didn't respond to doctors or family at his bedside. But after researchers surgically implanted a device that stimulates the vagus nerve, quiet areas of his brain began to perk up—as did he.
His eyes turned toward people talking and could follow a moving mirror. He turned his head to follow a speaker moving around his bed. He slowly shook his head when asked. When researchers suddenly drew very close to his face, his eyes widened as if he was surprised or scared. When caregivers played his favorite music, he smiled and shed a tear.
Note that "respond" is on the level of "turning his head when asked, though that took a minute."
A few thoughts on this:
- Medical advances are COOL!
- Hopefully, this advance can help some folks.
- This makes ethical questions concerning patients in persistent vegetative states more urgent:
- (e.g. the question of whether/when to pull the plug has become even more confusing)
- This introduces some new ethical questions:
- Is it ethical to "bring back" someone after 15 years? (the world has changed quite significantly)
- Is it ethical to "bring back" someone to a state where they're might just barely be conscious enough to realise how much their state sucks?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @03:19PM (7 children)
Meh... I'm myself 35 now... so I pretty much left the university 15 years ago... the new stuff that I learned in that time (some of it is outdated already) could easily be caught up with in... 2 years or so. OTOH, got tired of my job and switched to something completely else, lots of people do that.... I think with some good mindset he would be fine.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:33PM (6 children)
What did you switch to, out of curiosity, assuming you left the tech field altogether?
I'm always a little curious to hear about people who started in the tech field and abandoned it, despite all the screams from various places that "We need more people in STEM!!!!".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:39PM (4 children)
Animal husbandry... Specifically breeding stallions... My uncle has a farm. My job is to collect the essential fluids we use when breeding horses...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:50PM (2 children)
a horse wanker. what a life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @05:06PM (1 child)
The proper term is animal husbander...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @09:02PM
In that case, my right hand is a human husbander. I feel better about it already ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @06:11PM
They say, do what you love. Sounds like you left to follow a field you must have had an aptitude for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @08:01PM
Previous Poster here, someone scooped the thread (well, that's what you get for posting as AC)
I'm a trained plant molecular biologist, but moved into the field of software programming (still somewhat in with relation of biology and lab work though). So, yeah... in a way I'm a STEM person and still consider myself to be that. After so many years working in science, you'll start to see all the flaws in the way things are done. I managed to earn myself quite a bit of money through investments in that time and after finishing my so-much-th temporarily contract I decided to make my hobby (programming as independent developer) my work... and hopefully within not too much time my work into my hobby.