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2011, Number 1

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Rev Cubana Neurol Neurocir 2011; 1 (1)

Persistent vegetative state: a challenge for current neurosciences

Hodelín TR, Machado CC

Language: Spanish
References: 50
Page: 44-51
PDF size: 181.45 Kb.


ABSTRACT

Objectives: To review literature about persistent vegetative state, to base criteria based on our experiences, to set out our arguments on the vital support and to contribute to the scientific spreading and the debate.
Development: The persistent vegetative state constitutes a controversial subject, in the chapter of contemporary alterations of it brings back to consciousness of the Neurosciences and was described in 1972 by Jennett and Plum. Epidemiology indicates to us that every time the number of patients is greater who after severe head injury or another injury of the nervous system happen to this state, of here the necessity to know this organization and to prepare us for their medical attention. This state is characterized by the complete absence of behavioural evidence for self or environmental awareness with total or partial preservation of the functions of the stem brain and hypothalamus. There is preserved capacity for spontaneous or stimulus–induced arousal, evidenced by sleep–wake cycles. These patients are not unconscious nor in comma in the usual sense of the word, are wide–awake without brings back to consciousness.
Conclusions: It is an incorrect, arbitrary attitude, to describe the state as these patients like not deserved of being lived. From the ethical point of view, we considered that it constitutes an attack against the dignity of the human being to retire the hydration and the nutrition to a patient in persistent vegetative state. These patients are alive reason why we must offer the medical aid them who need.


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