[HN Gopher] Some people who appear to be in a coma may be conscious
___________________________________________________________________
Some people who appear to be in a coma may be conscious
Author : TeacherTortoise
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-10-22 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| DocJade wrote:
| Relevant: https://youtu.be/LTikuFFr7JA
|
| It genuinely terrifies me that this could happen to anyone in a
| moments notice
| petilon wrote:
| This story is just as amazing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPHxlXb64EQ
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| For more horror: There are stories of people who were legally
| brain dead who woke up - see Colleen Burns, for example. She woke
| up just before her organs were going to be removed for donation
| (quite literally under the surgical lights). The hospital was
| also fined for inexplicably (possibly maliciously) giving off-
| the-record sedatives when she started to show signs of life after
| the diagnosis - but she managed to wake up in time anyway. (It's
| also why I'm not an organ donor - I'm scared I won't actually be
| dead, and that the hospital is perhaps not the most impartial
| decision maker of whether I am dead.)
|
| https://www.syracuse.com/news/2013/07/st_joes_fined_over_dea...
|
| https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/dead-patient-collee...
|
| See also Zack Dunlap, a 21-year-old man who claims to have heard
| the doctors pronounce his death - and also awoke very shortly
| before organ removal.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23768436
|
| https://www.today.com/news/pronounced-dead-man-takes-miracul...
|
| There are about a ~dozen others out there as well.
| guenthert wrote:
| I am an organ donor, already donated one and can assure you I
| am not dead yet.
|
| Donating organs is an easy way (for the donor -- the medical
| staff is performing magic) to make a significant, positive
| difference. And frankly, for many of us, it's probably the only
| way.
|
| No need to be afraid.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I'm not speaking about when you are alive, go ahead, donate.
| I'm only talking about the "Donor" tag on your driver's
| license after an accident - where, well, people have woken up
| who were considered "brain dead" and were sometimes just
| minutes from organ removal. Which naturally induces shivers
| about the people who would have woken up but didn't have
| enough time...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| How likely is that situation vs. being considered brain
| dead and having all life-supporting treatment halted? It
| seems like you're more likely to survive if they try to
| harvest your organs than if they unplug you and leave the
| room.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Perhaps more worrying is the people who appear to be conscious
| but are actually in a coma. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpn7C6r-WEM @ 7m20s
| [deleted]
| warbler73 wrote:
| Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case
| techdragon wrote:
| This is why I have on multiple occasions told people "I know it
| sounds stupid but if I'm ever in a coma, do not dare pull the
| fucking plug on me without an FMRI scan to look for any brain
| response to the outside world"
|
| I can only imagine how much it could suck to be like this, but
| the idea of being conscious and realising that I have no way to
| tell them I'm "in here" while they assume I'm never going to
| recover and pull the plug, slowly dying of dehydration or
| hypoxia, that is fucking Nightmare Fuel with a capital N capital
| F, as in No Fucking Way I ever want that to happen.
|
| I have made it clear on multiple occasions that I don't care what
| you do once I'm definitely dead, but if you don't make fucking
| sure to the best of science's ability to check, ... not just
| accepting the doctor saying I'm not responsive and I'm probably
| gone... if there's an afterlife I will haunt them, If not I want
| them to know how much I disapprove and wish their children and
| children's children will look upon the decision to not even check
| I'm alive with the utmost disapproval.
|
| It's not fucking hard to check if there's any brain activity in
| response to talking or touching or opening eyelids and holding
| things up in front of them... the alternative feels too monstrous
| to contemplate. We don't exactly have dozens of stable coma
| patients who aren't already likely to die from other issues
| related to injuries, etc... it really should be mandatory for
| stable coma patients to be rigorously scanned to make sure we
| aren't accidentally murdering people like this...
|
| Also in case anyone mistakes my phrasing as some sort of pro-life
| or anti-suicide thing... their body their choise... and I also
| fully support the right of any locked in person (among many other
| miserable conditions that also seem fair to allow medical suicide
| for) to say "fuck it, I'm out, this isn't living" and be allowed
| medically assisted suicide, but they at least deserve to choose
| that to themselves. Hell.. I know I'd want the choice if I was in
| their shoes. Anyone that thinks someone should be _forced_ to
| live like that should get their head examined.
| klondike_ wrote:
| This is why I refuse to sign up as an organ donor. They will
| not hesitate to pull the plug in an effort to harvest your
| organs while they're still "fresh"
|
| I don't have any problem with my organs being used after my
| death, but that decision should be made by my family and not
| the vultures at the hospital.
| aeturnum wrote:
| Why would your organs become less 'fresh' if you are stable
| but appear to be in a vegetative state? I understand being
| worried about people taking advantage of disabled (perhaps
| temporarily) folks - but I don't think there's a ticking
| clock issue here?
| klondike_ wrote:
| If you're already (physically) dead by the time you arrive
| at the hospital, the chances of successfully harvesting a
| working organ are low.
|
| Thus, organ harvesters prefer patients who are physically
| alive but brain dead. Organ donor status basically gives
| them permission to harvest your still-beating heart.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Good. I hope it's of use to someone; I won't be needing
| it any longer at that point, being brain dead and all.
| robbiep wrote:
| That's absolute horse shit, you are grossly misinformed about
| the process of organ donation
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > They will not hesitate to pull the plug in an effort to
| harvest your organs while they're still "fresh"
|
| On the contrary, it seems like they'll keep you on life
| support after brain death to ensure your organs are still
| fresh.
|
| > that decision should be made by my family and not the
| vultures at the hospital.
|
| I mean, sure. In most places it's your next of kin that
| decide. You do know that the hospital doesn't get paid for
| organs donated, right? I have no idea what incentives you
| think they have to kill you.
| dusted wrote:
| Soo... What's next when they've determined that you're
| conscious ?
|
| How is being trapped inside your head, potentially forever less
| of a nightmare scenario?
|
| I'll go the opposite "If you detect I'm conscious, kill me
| asap!"
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Why not "If you detect I'm conscious figure out a method of
| communication and ask me if I want to die"?
| dusted wrote:
| Fair enough, if we can find a way to communicate, sure,
| let's try it, give it two weeks, then start the morphine
| drip kthxbye ;-)
| rlpb wrote:
| There's a big difference between being conscious and being
| mentally competent to make choices like that.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| In many places there is no way to kill someone ASAP. Just to
| let them starve and dehydrate until they die.
|
| But if they can detect I'm thinking, they can detect at least
| binary differences between my mental state. Which means that
| I can communicate somehow.
| Retric wrote:
| Being stuck without interacting with the physical world for
| years seems like a much worse situation.
| techdragon wrote:
| Hence a rapid edit about my opinions regarding medical
| suicide.
| Nzen wrote:
| That's why I filled out my Physician Orders for Life-
| Sustaining Treatment so they don't keep my meat on life-
| support for more than a limited period.
| karamanolev wrote:
| If you're really locked in, wouldn't you be going completely
| mad after only a few days or weeks? I approve of the idea to
| really make sure the person is brain dead, but how would you
| feel to be living locked in for months, years? How do they
| decide if you want mercy and for this to be done vs continue
| fighting to get back?
| techdragon wrote:
| Hence the quick edit to clarify a very important secondary
| opinion regarding medically assisted suicide.
|
| Also I didn't feel it necessarily to mention, but there are
| established protocols for communication with locked in
| patients. Effectively you explain to them you know they are
| locked in and work to develop any effective feedback loop, be
| it brain wave biofeedback, blinking, or anything else.
|
| Once you can reliably ask yes no questions (and trust you
| aren't miss interpreting the patient) you can eventually get
| to important questions like "do you want to live like this?"
| orangepurple wrote:
| 150 years ago premature burial was one of the greatest fears of
| many people.
|
| George Washington famously feared premature burial. While on
| his deathbed in 1799, he instructed his personal secretary
| Tobias Lear to make sure he was dead before he was buried:
|
| "Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into
| the vault in less than three days after I am dead."
|
| Washington ushered in an era of taphophobia, or fear of
| premature burial. During the 19th century, popular books and
| magazines promoted the idea that many people were buried alive.
| They reported tales of bloody shrouds, gnawed fingers and
| horribly contorted bodies inside their coffins.
|
| "Less than 150 years ago many medical practitioners freely
| admitted to being uncertain whether their patients were dead or
| alive," wrote Jan Bondeson in Buried Alive: The Terrifying
| History of Our Most Primal Fear, published in 2002.
|
| https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/when-fears-of-pr...
| themitigating wrote:
| I would tell people to kill me instantly. Imagine just looking
| foward with no interaction and just your thoughts? I'd go
| insane and right now I'm thinking of those in comas.
|
| Am I weird that I think suffering past a certain level is worse
| than death?
| wildpeaks wrote:
| More horrifying than being stuck in your thoughts, imagine
| having a cramp or pain you can't do anything about nor ask
| for help.
| biohacker85 wrote:
| Being unable to scratch an itch is bad enough.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I can get used to a pain and touching it doesn't really
| help but an itch oooh boy drive me mad, probably because
| I knew it'll feel so good in the short term at least!
| [deleted]
| notfed wrote:
| > slowly dying of dehydration or hypoxia
|
| This is a fair point, and for me I would accept the solution of
| massive doses of diamorphine.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Or just a slightly too high dose of fent.
| version_five wrote:
| > The medical team gave her an EEG--placing sensors on her head
| to monitor her brain's electrical activity--while they asked
| her to "keep opening and closing your right hand." Then they
| asked her to "stop opening and closing your right hand." Even
| though her hands themselves didn't move, her brain's activity
| patterns differed between the two commands.
|
| A eeg is afaik done as a matter of course in these situations.
| Fmri is not realistic or necessarily
| devteambravo wrote:
| Spent a month in a coma. Can confirm! (Anecdotally)
| aliqot wrote:
| The hardest part would be to see my family move on, my wife
| remarry, and eventually the last person leaves, hoping that my
| departure is swift. Then I just wait while the medical staff
| picks me clean of their burden.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| As a horror writer, I can't help but wonder what sorts of stories
| this leads to, and what you might get wrong while writing about
| it...
|
| By conscious, do they mean "aware", or do they also mean
| "actively thinking about what they are experiencing" ? How often
| do they come out of it? Do they have clear memories of it?
| wingspar wrote:
| Takes from the Crypt had an episode along this plot line in the
| '90's
|
| This messed me up, back in the day...
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0716824/
| tsol wrote:
| People have been through it and later recovered enough
| functionality to write books about their experience.
| Surprisingly, they report feeling pretty normal and even
| hopeful for the most part. Most people, when hearing about
| this, imagine it'd be all feelings of terror and wanting to be
| dead. But in reality people get used to it pretty quickly and
| their mental world adapts.
| aliqot wrote:
| Check out the Canadian children's TV show called 'The Odyssey',
| it's about this topic.
| [deleted]
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| They mean "shows brain activity that appears to be specifically
| triggered by the semantic content of outside input". Not even
| aware, necessarily - that level of response can be shown while
| asleep, for example. And it says that patients have never
| remembered this, to date.
| js2 wrote:
| This one terrified me as a kid:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_(1978_film)
|
| This kind of thing could never happen, right?
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/serial-infector-gets-39-yea...
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/army-nurse-suspected-of-hepatit...
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/washington-nurse-linked-to-hepa...
| isx726552 wrote:
| Surprised the article doesn't mention "Ghost Boy" by Martin
| Pistorius, a first hand account of a patient who spent years in
| this state:
|
| http://www.ghostboybook.com/
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Pistorius
| nelox wrote:
| A good podcast about his story
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/l...
| odysseus wrote:
| There's also:
|
| * A man who woke after 6 years in a coma:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20081203230030/https://cornellsu...
|
| * Haleigh Poutre who woke after months in a coma:
| https://www.wwlp.com/news/haleigh-poutre-10-years-later/
|
| * Jesse Ramirez who was in a coma and declared "vegetative" but
| recovered 3 weeks later:
| https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/crash-survivor-s-cas...
| seanhunter wrote:
| A schoolfriend was in a coma for a while after a sports
| injury[1]. He told us how his parents brought a bottle of
| lucozade for him to have if he woke up and after they left he
| heard staff discussing how since he was never going to wake up
| they would just drink it themselves.
|
| [1] Rugby scrum collapse
| GolfPopper wrote:
| During WWII, my grandfather survived a mortar shell fragment
| through his skull, leaving him completely paralyzed and blind.
| He recounted being able to clearly hear the conversations of
| the doctors and nurses caring for him, and credited his desire
| to prove them wrong about him being comatose for his eventual
| recovery. After several months, he was able to move, and
| eventually regained sight, speech, and most of his mobility.
| (He lived well into his 70s - long outlasting the physician who
| diagnosed him, as he would mention on the rare occasions when
| he discussed his injuries.)
| eitland wrote:
| In military they told us to never ever talk in a hopeless way
| near wounded even if we thought they were completely
| unconscious.
|
| Usually the hearing is the last sense to go they thought us,
| and if we said "he'll never make it" it could be the straw
| that broke the camels back for someone who is fighting the
| battle of their life.
|
| I don't know enough to know if this is true or not but I
| think it is a good idea anyway.
| bombcar wrote:
| It is a very good rule and we shouldn't leave it only for
| the apparently unconscious! Hope is a powerful thing and
| being a naysayer can have a bigger effect than we think
| (even on us).
| sss111 wrote:
| Why does the timestamp on the article say it was published on
| November 1, 2022. I'm not in the future, right? Someone help!
| pmoriarty wrote:
| This reminds me of _Johnny Got His Gun_ [1], about a wounded war
| vet who's locked in and unable to communicate with the outside
| world despite being conscious.
|
| It's a living nightmare.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun
| la64710 wrote:
| Sad to think of all the lives we lost only if we knew then what
| we know now ......
| oneoff786 wrote:
| It doesn't really go into the patients' accounts of what happens.
| Were they conscious or not?
|
| It's not obvious that they were by merely passing this covert
| consciousness test
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| It does.
|
| > to date patients with covert consciousness who recovered the
| ability to communicate and were interviewed later did not
| remember the experience of being covertly conscious.
| Mazurkevich, for instance, does not recall any aspect of her
| time in the intensive care unit when she appeared to be
| comatose
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| majestic5762 wrote:
| Can say it's true from my experience. My uncle cried and tried to
| grab my hand when he saw me near his hospital bed, even if he was
| in a coma. I've knew since then people might be awake even if we
| perceive then as vegetables
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Sorry, no. That's not what's being talked about here. Movement
| and visible response is not locked in syndrome.
|
| Peace though in your grief.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| There are some things which are worse than death and this is one
| of them.
| rumpelstinkin wrote:
| anything is worse than death as the dead don't suffer, by all
| currently available evidence.
|
| but yeah, this one is definitely the absolute worse thing that
| could happen to someone, and let's not forget it is entirely
| man-made, given that fully paralyzed people are being
| forcefully kept alive by some f*cking sadist of a pro-lifer...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| So you'd rather be mercilessly tortured than to die? It's
| quite the opposite for me.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Read his comment again, he agrees with you.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| That's my nightmare fuel.
| elil17 wrote:
| I heard about one person who was stuck watching Barney reruns
| for a decade while he was locked into a coma.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| And having to sit on his own balls for hours because he got
| put down in his wheelchair like that. That killed me.
| tsol wrote:
| That's like torture. That's awful.
| guerrilla wrote:
| That's locked-in syndrome, "psuedocoma", not coma[1]. It was
| 12 years[2].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome
|
| 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-
| science/wp/2...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-22 23:01 UTC)