Vegetative state diagnosis often wrong, study shows

WASHINGTON (BP)—New studies demonstrate that doctors should be extremely cautious about diagnosing patients as being in a vegetative state and in limiting their expectations of improvement.

Research teams from Belgium reported about 40 percent of patients they studied were misdiagnosed as in a vegetative state, when they actually should have been diagnosed as in a minimally conscious state, according to a June 20 report on News-Medical.Net, an online medical news service. Another Belgian team found about 25 percent of patients diagnosed in an acute vegetative state when they enter a hospital had a good opportunity to regain a considerable percentage of their faculties and as much as half would reacquire some level of consciousness.

A comparison with past studies demonstrated the incidence of misdiagnosis has not fallen in the last 15 years, News-Medical.Net reported.

The reports followed by two years the death of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who died of complications from dehydration. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, in a legal battle with Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, gained a ruling from a Florida court to have her feeding tube disconnected. She had been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state and had been receiving nutrition and hydration through a tube since 1990, when she collapsed and suffered a brain injury.

Pro-life bioethics specialist Wesley Smith addresses issues of life support, doctor-family communication and medical directives on the bioethics.com weblog. He is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.