Many people diagnosed by physicians as unconscious and incapable of feeling pain, are conscious and can feel pain. "Indeed, at least one study indicated an alarming rate of misdiagnosis: it found that 41 percent of patients with traumatic brain injury who were in chronic care and thought to be in the vegetative state were in fact" in a minimally conscious state ("MCS"). Dr. Joseph J. Fins, "Brain Injury and the Civil Right We Don't Think About" posted in New York Times online on Thursday, August 24, 2017, also available at https://nyti.ms/2vrvVwX.
It makes a difference because patients who are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state very often are denied insurance coverage for rehabilitation when they are discharged from the hospital. Since they are not conscious, so the reasoning goes, insurance should not cover rehabilitation because rehabilitation cannot help unconscious people.
It also makes a difference because people who are misdiagnosed as being in a vegetative state are operated on without anesthesia. Since they are not conscious, so the reasoning goes, anesthesia will not help them.
Imagine being operated on without anesthesia, feeling the excruciating pain of it, and not being able to cry out? Or worse, trying to communicate by such means as MCS patients have available to them like, for example, blinking one eye, without it being understood as a cry to stop the pain? See again Dr. Joseph J. Fins, "Brain Injury and the Civil Right We Don't Think About" posted in New York Times online on Thursday, August 24, 2017, also available at https://nyti.ms/2vrvVwX.
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