Page 5 - Persistent Vegetative State News Today

The parents of a 13 month old canadian boy are in the middle of a fight with a hospital treating their son. the hospital says that the little boy has a degenerative brain condition, and they want to remove his breathing tube, but the family says, no, way and are fighting to keep their son alive. tell us exactly whats going on. >> first of all, i want to say this a horrible story, a sad story on all accounts. the fight is between the parents and the hospital. the parents say that the hospital has...

Them alive if they are not going to recover but the parents say they are not convinced that their son is in a persistent vegetative state. the parents gave us this voe. you can see here someone is tickling the baby, and the baby moves. we showed this video to my colleague sanjay gupta who, of course, is a neurosurgeon, and he says its possible that we are seeing movements that are reflexes, and not deliberate movements by the baby, and babies have more of these preserved reflexes than adults do....

Youre going to see that special on hurricane katrina, that was actually one of those events i want to tell you about. i want to give you a picture of three watershed moments in american history. hurricane katrina, new orleans all but destroyed by natural disaster. another watershed moment, terry schiavo, the fate of a woman who was in that persistent vegetative state and whether she could be allowed to die or not. and the third thing is the bankruptcy of general motors, the difficulty in which t...

Working with abbie. there had been some articles in some papers from her former husbands attorneys, that have said that she was in a persistent vegetative state. do you agree with that? >> no. >> absolutely not? >> no. i think that abbies clinical condition is more indicative of a brain-injured individual. >> reporter: but her ex-husband would not talk to us, disagrees. he says abbie could not possibly be communicating and is preventing their three children from visiting her. vicki bregreen is h...

Abbie survived, of course, though her brain was severely damaged. the triplets, they were fine. today theyre 4 years old. were not showing you the faces because they are minors. abbie has not seen them since they were 1. her parents say she wants to, that she tells them that with her blinking. robert mccarthy is a therapist working with abbie. there have been some articles and some papers from her former husbands attorneys that have said that she was in a persistent vegetative state. do you agre...

>> during delivery, abbie lost nearly two liters of blood, underwent an emergency hysterectomy and her most vital organ, her brain, was starved for oxygen for almost 20 minutes. abbie survived, of course. though her brain was severely damaged. the triplets were fine. today, theyre 4 years old. were not showing you their faces because they are minors. abbie has not seen them since they were 1. her parents say she wants to, that she tells them that with her blinking. robert mccarthy is a therapist...

Life. >> there were no signs during her pregnancy that things would go terribly wrong. abbies father. >> we didnt know anything about this until three hours after it happened. >> during delivery, abbie lost nearly two liters of blood, underwent an emergency hysterectomy and her most vital organ, her brain, was starved for oxygen almost 20 minutes. abbie survived, of course. though her brain was severely damaged. the triplets were fine. today, theyre 4 years old. were not showing you their faces ...

He wants to accompany them to south carolina, where they can see their mother for essentially the first time. >> joe johns, cnn, washington. lets dig deeper into legal and medical issues surrounding this case, cnn senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin and chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. abbies parents are saying she responds by blinking in response to questions. does that give any indication of the state her brain is actually in? >> if in fact she was able to respond, hear some sor...

Those parts of the brain dont exist, theyve simply died away as a result of that lack of oxygen. >> jeff, legally, what are the big issues here? >> i think there is a factual issue in many more respects more important or determines the legal issue. thats what youre talking about with sanjay, whether she has any cognitive function at all. any judge will want that question answered first. it wont be enough simply to have her parents say we know we can communicate with her. they will need an indepe...

Does that give any indication of the state her brain is actually in? >> if in fact she was able to respond, hear some sort of command and make some sort of movement, in this case, blinking of the eye, to give some sort of communication, it would. a lot of times, its hard to parse out someone is in fact responding to a particular thing or whether or not theyre just blinking their eyes. people who are in persistent vegetative state can have sleep wake cycles, eye movements, all sorts of things. >>...