Webster’s Dictionary defines a vegetative state, in the medical sense, as being “a state in which there is a total loss of cognitive functioning and in which only involuntary bodily functions (as breathing or blinking of the eyes) are sustained.”
And we know what that diagnosis means, in terms of the kinds of treatments given to such patients and the kinds of “end of life” decisions which family members make, based on the confident assertions of doctors. Continue reading ““Vegetative” patients show cognition”