Vegetative patients are conscious

Most people think that vegetative patients are hopeless and have no thoughts at all. Actually, no, they can feel what is happening in the outside world, but they can’t do anything or stop it. There are many cases where vegetative patients eventually woke up, and they all did so because their family members talked about their past events around them every day. This makes them have a strong desire to wake up, so they should never be abandoned at any time.

Traditional medicine believes that the brain of a "vegetative state" has lost consciousness, but after scanning the brain of a "vegetative state" injured in a car accident, British scientists were shocked to find that this female "vegetative state" could actually imagine the scene of playing tennis in her brain according to the doctor's orders.

This 23-year-old British woman fell into a deep coma after a car accident in July 2005. According to international medical standards, the woman was classified as in a deep vegetative state.

Five months later, Dr. Adrian Owen, an expert at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Group in Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues scanned her brain using "functional magnetic resonance imaging." Experts have conducted similar experiments on normal people before. When doctors asked the subjects to imagine playing tennis in their brains, the areas of their brains related to upper limbs began to become active; when doctors asked them to imagine walking home, the areas of the brain related to spatial imaging became active again.

British experts conducted the same test on the female "vegetative state" and were shocked to find that no matter whether the doctor asked her to imagine playing tennis or imagining walking, the relevant active areas in her brain were exactly the same as those of normal people! This meant that she not only understood the doctor's orders, but also carried them out.

Dr. Irving said their discovery could help doctors diagnose many "vegetative patients" who are still conscious. However, Owen also admitted that this case cannot prove that all "vegetative patients" have similar consciousness. But no matter what, when family members talk to a "vegetative person", maybe the "vegetative person" can hear their voices!

Dr Ramnani, a neurologist at the University of London, said: " If the patient is still conscious and able to make decisions in his mind, can others decide to end their life without authorization?" This evidence shows that doctors should never give up hope on patients with brain damage. Lan Xi can use his brain to imagine "playing tennis" and the vegetative patient is actually conscious.