Okay. This truly frightens me.

Associated Press
By PAUL ELIAS
16 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The family of a California teenager who was declared brain-dead after suffering complications from sleep apnea surgery is seeking an unprecedented court order declaring her alive, the family's lawyer said Thursday.

Attorney Chris Dolan said doctors at the non-profit International Brain Research Foundation have found signs of brain functions after running a series of tests on the girl at Rutgers University last week.

The discovery came months after three doctors, including one appointed by a judge, declared Jahi McMath, 13, brain dead and Alameda County issued a death certificate after her Dec. 9 surgery went awry.

Since then, Jahi's mother has pushed for keeping her daughter's organs functioning on life support, first at Children's Hospital in Oakland and later at an undisclosed medical facility in New Jersey.

Dolan said Jahi and her parents moved to a house in New Jersey about a month ago where the girl remains on life support.

On Thursday, Dolan showed video clips to a small group of reporters that he says proves Jahi is still alive. One clip shows her twitching her foot after her mother asks her to move it. Another shows hand movement in apparent response to her mother's commands.

Philip DeFina, chief executive and chief scientific officer of the International Brain Research Foundation, said Jahi has responded to commands many other times.
There is a consistency to it," said DeFina said.

DeFina said an examination of Jahi also revealed that her brain was still intact, rather than "liquefying" as would be expected if a brain-dead body was kept on life-support for many months.

DeFina also said brain scans showed electrical activity, and other tests showed blood flowing to the brain.


http://news.yahoo.com/girls-family-seek ... 14462.html

I don't want to believe that a hospital would declare someone brain dead when they were not.

Somewhere, someone is/was wrong.

I don't want courts declaring people alive, either!

I hope if the medical evidence supports it, that the county can just vacate its earlier finding of death and revoke the death certificate. YIKES!

From another article....

Experts anticipated that without blood flow to the brain, which the early tests confirmed, Jahi's body would deteriorate, be unable to regulate temperature and other key functions, and that her brain would probably liquefy.

The tests, conducted at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, included an MRI and EEG, said Dolan and two experts who participated in the news conference by phone.

They purportedly showed intact brain structure, cerebral blood flow and electrical activity. Dolan said the girl has also begun her menstrual cycle, which experts say is inconsistent with brain death since it demands pituitary function.

Dr. Charles J. Prestigiacomo, chair of the neurological surgery department at Rutgers, said in a phone interview that the case raises questions of whether there “is something we might need to change in our basic teaching” on brain death.

“From what I know and what I’ve experienced with individuals who have been deemed brain-dead, usually the classic teaching is the body can’t tolerate and be functional for that long a period of time without there being important input from some part of the brain,” said Prestigiacomo, one of the experts who joined Dolan for the news conference.

Brain anatomy “has been preserved that we don’t expect to see nine months after what we consider brain death,” he said, and in cases of brain death “we would not see any electrical activity in any part of the brain.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

The neuroscientists have to be freaked by this. I just teach a little chapter on the brain in General Psychology, and I am kinda freaked.

At the risk of appearing a bit paranoid, IMO the most worrying is the "surgery gone awry" and being anxious to declare the patient dead... a result of an overly litigous society?

I really don't think it's that oskar. I really don't think they've left a 12/13 year old youth declared brain dead on life support for 9 months before. I don't think they know how neurogenesis works in brains of this age.

Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center, said he knows of no cases of a brain death determination being reversed. He cautioned that the data collected on Jahi has to be examined by other researchers and experts in the field before any conclusions can be made.

"Were this to be true, it would be an earth-shattering development in understanding death," Caplan said. "They're playing a high-stakes game."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/girls-famil ... th-ruling/

So, we'll see.

I've been thinking about this thread since Kathy posted it ~ something is just "off" about it ~ too many medical professionals [on both sides of the issue] would have to be misreading/misinterpreting test and scan results ~ is that possible? ~ yes, it is ~ but is it probable?

Sooz

Here's more ~ equally confusing to me ~ ~ Sooz

Family seeks medical consensus for California girl declared brain dead
Reuters | 10 Oct 2014

A lawyer for the family of a California girl declared brain dead after complications from a tonsillectomy wants to broker a conference between several physicians who insist she exhibits signs of life and a court-appointed doctor who rejects their findings.

Relatives of Jahi McMath, aged 13 when she suffered cardiac arrest in December following surgery to treat sleep apnea, petitioned a judge weeks ago to revoke her death certificate and restore her status as a living person.

They cite statements from several doctors saying new medical tests performed on Jahi, who is on a ventilator in New Jersey, found unmistakable signs of brain function, even awareness, at odds with a brain death diagnosis.

“Jahi currently does not fulfill brain death diagnostic criteria. She is an extremely disabled but very much alive teenage girl,” wrote Dr. Alan Shewmon, professor emeritus of neurology and pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Those assertions were quickly challenged in a letter to the judge by a Stanford University pediatric neurology specialist appointed by the court to review the petition, Dr. Paul Fisher.

Fisher countered that the tests and findings were irrelevant for determining brain death in a child, and that a key exam for brainstem function, testing a patient’s ability to breathe unassisted, was missing from the evaluation.

“None of the declarations provide evidence that Jahi McMath is not brain dead,” he wrote.

Experts say the case’s unusual circumstances, including the rarity of a patient being kept on life-support so long after brain activity was deemed to have ceased, could have implications for defining brain death in the future.

The opinion from Fisher, who originally confirmed the brain-death findings of two Oakland hospital physicians, came days before a hearing set for Thursday to consider the family’s petition.

SEEKING CONSENSUS

Family attorney Chris Dolan responded by withdrawing the petition, halting further legal action to buy time for a thorough reply and seek permission for all the doctors to consult, outside of court, in hopes of reaching a medical consensus on Jahi’s condition. Fisher was not immediately available for comment on Dolan’s suggestion.

Dolan has objected to Fisher’s reappointment by the court as a conflict of interest, noting it was Fisher’s original determination that was now under scrutiny.

Still, Dolan said outside experts were not out to fault Fisher. Some have suggested the discrepancies between his findings and later medical tests stem from severe brain swelling, now subsided.

“What we do want to do is to bring all the evidence forward to be looked at critically, and not defensively,” Dolan said.

Among the most compelling evidence is video that outside experts say clearly shows Jahi repeatedly moving her hands and feet in response to verbal requests from her mother, and the fact she has begun regular menstrual cycles.

The motor responsiveness demonstrated in the video, by itself, “proves that she is not brain dead, not even comatose,” Shewmon wrote, adding, “Corpses do not menstruate.”

They also cited tests showing electrical activity in the brain, cerebral blood flow and brain tissue left intact rather than liquefied, as would be expected months after death. Moreover, the girl’s heart rate appeared to vary in response to her mother’s voice.

Reversal of the death certificate would let the family bring Jahi home from New Jersey, which unlike California allows families to keep a relative on a ventilator on religious grounds after a brain death declaration, Dolan said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/family-seeks-medical-consensus-for-california-girl-declared-brain-dead/

It's very confusing and upsetting.

I think the doctors have to let their egos at the door, and discuss the validity and the meanings of the latest test results.

I saw her move her hands and feet. I don't know if brain dead people should be able to move.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15013288

Spontaneous and reflex movements may occur in brain-dead patients. These movements originate from spinal cord neurons and do not preclude a brain-death diagnosis.

I've been following this story on a religious snark board and the general consensus there is that until the family can show a video of Jahi and how she looks/acts today, you can't believe anything they're saying about her. The only "evidence" they have supplied are pictures of hands and feet - nothing to indicate they belong to Jahi at all, and anecdotes. Nothing documented and verifiable.

Like their Biblical anecdotes, you mean?

They also occur in dead bodies, when the cold embalming fluid hits a warm muscle (in a very recently deceased person), it causes contractions. I've seen it. Arm or leg twitches. There have been stories of full-on sit ups, but I've never seen that. Thank goodness. lol

The video from this links shows the whole body image of Jahi moving her foot.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti ... 800504.php