Medical/Psychological help needed on an unpleasant issue.

seun · May 31, 2007

I'm looking into

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state

It seems this is caused more by a physical trauma rather than psychological. Can anyone tell me if a huge psychological trauma such as rape could result in a similar state to PVS?

Thanks.

veinglory · May 31, 2007

I think the short answer is no. There are unresponsive states of varying degrees with predominantly psychological causes, but PVS is very severe and purely organic--resulting from some kind of brain injury leading to coma.

MidnightMuse · May 31, 2007

I would agree with Veinglory here - in psychological cases, you might see very trance-like or non-responsive states in various degrees of severity (the mind is a powerful thing), but you'd still detect high brain function on an EEG.

PVS, being completely organic, is determined by a complete lack of recordable brain function.

But I'm not a neurosurgeon - so there ya go

seun · Jun 1, 2007

Thanks for the help. I had an idea about this but thought I better check in any case.

larocca · Jun 1, 2007

Hunt down Dr Bob Rich. He's not only one of my favorite authors, but he's also one heck of a psychiatrist.

On second thought, I hunted him down for you. http://bobswriting.com/

Best regards,
Michael

seun · Jun 1, 2007

Thanks

I'll check him out later.

veinglory · Jun 1, 2007

Perhaps catatonia: stupor would fit better -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatonia

Medical/Psychological help needed on an unpleasant issue.

seun

Horror Man

veinglory

volitare nequeo

MidnightMuse

Midnight Reading

seun

Horror Man

larocca

Proofreader

seun

Horror Man

veinglory

volitare nequeo