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A review by kenderwolf
Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death by Adrian Owen
4.0
I enjoyed this quite a lot. The author does a good job of explaining the "gray zone" and the questions neuroscience is working on answering. His explanations are easy to read and understand, but not so simplified that I (having a medical background) felt talked down to at all.
The whole field of neurology and neuroscience is fascinating to me. The brain is such a poorly understood organ. Every time I turn around, something new is discovered. The advances in technology of MRI and fMRI has done amazing things for the field, as the author does a good job of describing.
I found the book sad and frightening as well. There is the potential for a significant percent of the population thought to be in a vegetative state to actually still be "in there" and aware. Without doubt, some of these patients are deteriorating alone and ignored in understaffed, underfunded care facilities. What a horrible thought! It also raises the question of how many people thought to be vegetative and removed from life support actually knew what was going on and didn't want it. Right now, an fMRI is not used to determine brain death; maybe books like this will push for that? Of course, fMRI is not widely available and the population of those "in the grey zone" versus actually vegetative appears to be quite small. It seems a huge opportunity for raising a lot of false hopes.
As a nurse, I admit that we as medical staff, at least in my experience and in busy departments like the ER, have a tendency to forget that people are "in there". Even if they aren't considered vegetative but simply have suffered a stroke and cannot verbally communicate, I've noticed a tendency to talk over the patient, to one another, forgetting to let the patient know what is going on. Books like this are a good reminder for me.
My only real complaint is that the author doesn't give many examples of those they tested and found to NOT be in the grey zone. Reading this makes it sound like many people are, further increasing the concern for false hopes.
The whole field of neurology and neuroscience is fascinating to me. The brain is such a poorly understood organ. Every time I turn around, something new is discovered. The advances in technology of MRI and fMRI has done amazing things for the field, as the author does a good job of describing.
I found the book sad and frightening as well. There is the potential for a significant percent of the population thought to be in a vegetative state to actually still be "in there" and aware. Without doubt, some of these patients are deteriorating alone and ignored in understaffed, underfunded care facilities. What a horrible thought! It also raises the question of how many people thought to be vegetative and removed from life support actually knew what was going on and didn't want it. Right now, an fMRI is not used to determine brain death; maybe books like this will push for that? Of course, fMRI is not widely available and the population of those "in the grey zone" versus actually vegetative appears to be quite small. It seems a huge opportunity for raising a lot of false hopes.
As a nurse, I admit that we as medical staff, at least in my experience and in busy departments like the ER, have a tendency to forget that people are "in there". Even if they aren't considered vegetative but simply have suffered a stroke and cannot verbally communicate, I've noticed a tendency to talk over the patient, to one another, forgetting to let the patient know what is going on. Books like this are a good reminder for me.
My only real complaint is that the author doesn't give many examples of those they tested and found to NOT be in the grey zone. Reading this makes it sound like many people are, further increasing the concern for false hopes.