Terri Schiavo Case Summary

The story of Terri Schiavo brought to the surface so many ethical dilemma that as healthy people we take for granted. The issue if advance directive became a bone of contention between a husband and the parents of his wife. Terri Schiavo was taken to the hospital after she collapsed on February 25, 1990, and she lost consciousness. She was without a pulse and was not breathing, the paramedics attempted resuscitation. She was taken to Humana Hospital where she was eventually was resuscitated. It was later diagnosed that she had a cardiac arrest with massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen. The cardiac arrest, it was discovered had been triggered by extreme hypokalemia. This was linked to her eating disorder which caused the potassium level to be 2.0. The normal range is 3.5 to 5.0/mEq/L (Pagana & Pagana, 2002, p. 372). One of the major consequences of hypokalemia, can be heart rhythm abnormalities. As a result, Terri suffered severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and as time went on she showed no evidence of higher cortical function. Computed tomographic (CT) scans showed severe atrophy of her cerebral hemispheres, and her electroencephalograms (ECG) were flat, indicating no functional activity of her cerebral cortex (Quill, 2005, p. 1630). Terri had periods of wakefulness alternating with
Terri was in a hospital for three years with traditional and experimental therapies being attempted to bring her back to life. Finally the neurologist convinced Michael, her husband of Terri's terminal diagnosis and irreversible persistent vegetative state. The likelihood of recovery is these cases is extremely small. When the vegetative state persists for more than ywelve months following traumatic brain injury, or three months with a non-traumatic case. Beyond this point the vegetative state is often referred to as permanent (Horne, Kahane, Savulescu, & Wilkinson, 2009, p.