Reading and Writing

Persistent vegetative state (PSV)

Student Name

Institution Affiliation

Instructor

Course

Date

Persistent vegetative state (PSV)

Persistent vegetative state (PSV) refers to a disorder that makes patients remain in their partial consciousness in comparison to the full normal awakening of an individual being. This disorder occurs due to a brain injury. For instance, when a patient remains in a vegetative state for four weeks time, he/she is classified to be in a PSV state. Also, “in case someone is in a persistent vegetative state, it means he or she is unable to move, speak, or think because they are victims of severe brain damage” (Bender, 2015). At that time their conditions are quite critical and not likely to improve. The PSV disorder defined as the vegetative state which is present in the first after having either non-traumatic or acute traumatic brain injury. However, it can be the state present within the first month among patients with developmental malformations, metabolic or degenerative disorders. Therefore, it means that a vegetative state defined as a consciousness disorder whereby the wakefulness maintained although the awareness of environment and self-factors are completely absent. In a vegetative state, the person is still unconscious. They have no awareness of themselves or their environment.

Continuing care vs. Passive euthanasia

Passive euthanasia is when the patient dies because the doctors or medical practitioners stopped doing something that is keeping the patient alive. In euthanasia debates, the issue always revolves among patients who are suffering intractable pain or are terminally ill. Furthermore, pain does not stand to be the only form of determining the problems and intolerable existence, however, it becomes more complex when existential qualities of life issues are the main focus.

Nobody has the rights to end an individual’s life regardless of their states regarding the pain persistent vegetative state patient’s they undergo. For instance, ending a human’s life is considered to be unethical and immoral although in most cases patients with the persistent vegetative state are considered anyway half dead. Therefore, to stop his/her suffering sometimes this step needs to be taken despite knowing that it's morally wrong to take someone's life because no one has the right to do that.

In most instances, active euthanasia in a legal way that regards to as a homicide. However, euthanasia can also be approached and intervened through utilization of analgesic methodologies. Although it seems like helping the patients ethically, it is not right to accord justice. For example in a situation where anesthetic medications or use of morphine are used to hasten the patient’s dying process or allow them to die to forgo the pains (Holland, 2014). However, after an evaluation of the two procedures, it can be considered for service providers to be utilizing the last method as it is more humane than the first one. It is because according to non-maleficence moral principle it is morally wrong to kill a human being. However, it would be humane to allow the person to die naturally.

However, after a report in 1994, it was suggested that individuals in a vegetative state for four weeks after trauma, 54% can regain consciousness after a year, only 28% dies, and 18% remains still in the vegetative state. Therefore, it shows doctors should have the beneficence moral principle as a high percentage of patients can regain back from PSV. It thus means doctors making patients in any way die from passive euthanasia is unethical.

References Bender, A. J. (2015). Persistent vegetative state and minimally conscious state: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic procedures. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 112(14), 235. Holland, S. K. (2014, January 19). NCBI: Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy. Retrieved from Death, treatment decisions and the permanent vegetative state: evidence from families and experts: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078237/