Functioning without a brain?

[Gymp]

I've been reading in the Hydrocephalus section and it got me to thinking about a television show I had watched many years ago,I think it was a Nova program on PBS,but I'm not really sure anymore.It was basically about adults with very little brain matter left due to Hydrocephalus untreated.These people were of average intelligence if not better and led meaningful lives and had never known that they ever had had Hydro issues.
I googled around abit to see if I could dig anything up on this topic and did find this...

http://farshores.org/jd103003.htm

With all the advancements in medicine which is a good thing, it's interesting that sometimes without it,miracles happen too.Just some food for thought.What do you think?

Gymp

[LisaJoy]

What's really interesting is that Lorber is the one who first established criteria in the early 70s for "letting" infants with sb die. He developed criteria that he said would predict outcomes in terms of walking and intellectual development. He believed that anyone whom he predicted would need ANY assistance to walk (much less use a wheelchair) or to have a below "normal" IQ (based on amount of hydrocephalus) should not receive treatment and should be allowed to die. He developed a clinical center at Sheffield where his criteria were implemented -- he considered it a success if he didn't treat and the baby died and a failure if the baby lived. His articles talk about "successful series of patients" and when you read it you realize they were successful because the patients died.

His colleague at Sheffield, Robert Zachary, was appalled by those criteria and maintained a practice in the same hospital where almost all sb babies were treated (all but those who had other conditions incompatible with life, such as anencephaly or severe heart defects).

Lorber's criteria were widely applied around the world during the 70s, but started causing a backlash in the early 80s, especially in the US. But his articles are STILL cited by physicians who hold to a pessimistic outlook for sb.

Ironically, Lorber considered himself a great advocate for people with sb and was on the board of ASBAH. He (and many others) considered his criteria more humane than allowing the babies to live and have to undergo multiple operations and kidney complications. It was after the development of clean intermittent catheterization and improvement in shunts in the late 70s that the backlash began.