UK doctors breach guidance on persistent vegetative state

The permanent vegetative state: practical guidance on diagnosis and management.

Patients who survive catastrophic brain damage may be left permanently unaware—in the permanent vegetative state. Many doctors are likely to manage these patients at some point in their career. The diagnosis has been the subject of reports prepared by official bodies. It has been defined as “a clinical condition of unawareness of self and environment in which the patient breathes spontaneously,...

The vegetative state: guidance on diagnosis and management.

Cortical function in the persistent vegetative state.

expressed quantitative cerebral activity is crucial. The strongest evidence that supports the concept of early recovery of awareness in Menon et al.'s patient is that she ultimately recovered consciousness. Had she never regained any additional expressed qualities of attention, recognition, or interactive behavior beyond the P300 and the PET findings after another eight months (i.e. a year afte...

Best interests in persistent vegetative state.

Letters Best interests in persistent vegetative state SIR While I agree with several points raised in your recent editorial' on my paper, Applying best interests to persistent vegetative state-a principled distortion?,2 I must respond to a number of other issues which you raise. I agree unreservedly with your caveat that both doctors and judges must act within the law. My paper, however, sought...

Covert cognition in the persistent vegetative state.

Brain damage can sometimes render a patient persistently unresponsive and yet apparently awake, admitting the possibility that the absence of overt voluntary behaviour might conceal a retained capacity for covert cognition. When given instructions to perform a cognitive task, a minority of patients in such a so-called persistent vegetative state (PVS) has recently been found to exhibit patterns...