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all I have yet heard is that she is in critical condition, responding to commands, and survived a gun shot wound to the head.
If you have more info please post it, thanks.
Doctors said they are "optimistic" that Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) will recover from a shot to the head suffered on Saturday. Though she is still in critical condition, doctors at University Medical Center said she is responsive after surgery.
all I have yet heard is that she is in critical condition, responding to commands, and survived a gun shot wound to the head.
If you have more info please post it, thanks.
Doctors said they are "optimistic" that Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) will recover from a shot to the head suffered on Saturday. Though she is still in critical condition, doctors at University Medical Center said she is responsive after surgery.
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in Critical Condition After Shooting | C-SPAN
this thread may be around a few weeks as her condition improves.
University Medical Center spokeswoman Darci Slaten told The Associated Press that Giffords remained sedated after undergoing a two-hour surgery Saturday and has not been conscious since the shooting. She said more information will be released at a news conference in which one of the doctors who operated on Giffords plans to speak.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was able to communicate with doctors through simple commands, hospital officials said Sunday as the Arizona Democrat remained in critical condition....
..."What was most concerning to us with this injury is the "bullet crossing from one hemisphere to the other."
That was not the case, in this instance, he said.
"And because of this , Congresswoman Giffords was able to communicate with us this morning through simple commands."
He gave an example of a simple command as "please squeeze two fingers," adding that we take such commands for granted, but "they imply a very high level of functioning in the brain."
"I am cautiously optimistic," Lemole said.
Lemole says the gunshot went through the left side of her head and that surgeons worked to reduce pressure from swelling in the brain by removing bone fragments.
Dr. Peter Rhee, head of trauma, critical care and emergency surgery, said, "Overall this is about as good as good can get" with a bullet wound to the head."
Doctors added also said she was in a medically induced coma right now.
this thread may be around a few weeks as her condition improves.
Assuming she does live through this it's unlikely she'll be 100% normal. I read something yesterday that said only 5% of people survive a gunshot wound to the head and of those who do, something like only 3% recover without at least some loss of motor skills and/or memory.
this thread may be around a few weeks as her condition improves.
Assuming she does live through this it's unlikely she'll be 100% normal. I read something yesterday that said only 5% of people survive a gunshot wound to the head and of those who do, something like only 3% recover without at least some loss of motor skills and/or memory.
I agree, there's no way she'll ever be the way she was before the shooting. You don't take a bullet through the brain without being permanently affected in some way shape or form. Her political service is over. Sad but true. Hope she recovers though, not good to see that happen to anybody based on some psychopath snapping.
Assuming she does live through this it's unlikely she'll be 100% normal. I read something yesterday that said only 5% of people survive a gunshot wound to the head and of those who do, something like only 3% recover without at least some loss of motor skills and/or memory.
I agree, there's no way she'll ever be the way she was before the shooting. You don't take a bullet through the brain without being permanently affected in some way shape or form. Her political service is over. Sad but true. Hope she recovers though, not good to see that happen to anybody based on some psychopath snapping.
A lot of doctors believe that you only really need one half of the brain to be functional.
here is a lengthy article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/magazine/08WWLN.html
It would seem an immensely improbable thing that someone could survive a gunshot wound to the head. But many people do survive, and a lot of what doctors know about how to deal with damage to the brain has come from working on people who have survived this sort of injury.
The bullet that the gunman fired into Gabrielle Giffords's head on Saturday entered the back of her skull on the left hand side and exited at the front. She remains in a critical condition but was able to follow simple commands before surgery, such as holding up two fingers when asked and wiggling her toes.
"If [the bullet] had gone lower down into the brain and damaged the areas that affect respiration, then she would have died immediately," said Tipu Aziz, a neurosurgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. "I understand that, since she is obeying commands even before surgery, the bullet didn't traverse that area of the brain."
In the initial surgical procedure after the shooting, doctors removed gunshot debris and a portion of her skull, to relieve the pressure on the brain as it swells in response to the trauma. "The major reasons for fatalities are really to do with the fact that the brain lives inside a confined box called the skull and, if pressure increases within that confined box, that's what's going to really lead to death," said Masud Husain, a clinical neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery in London.
The main cause of death at the scene of a gunshot wound is usually blood loss – if a bullet goes through important blood vessels and there is not enough time to stop the resulting bleeding, for example.
If the victim survives the initial blood loss, the problem then becomes the increasing pressure inside the skull. "The blood supply to the brain reduces but also the blood which is coming out of the vessels causes pressure within this confined space of the skull," said Husain. "And, if the bullet itself goes through the brain structure, there is a massive inflammatory reaction, so you get a lot of swelling in the brain and that's another big cause for death."
According to reports from the doctors treating Giffords, the bullet did not cross the centre of the brain from the left to the right hemispheres. Major blood vessels cross the centre of the brain and are therefore likely to have been spared damage.
For the next few days, doctors will monitor the pressure in her skull and look for any other potential sources of increasing pressure. "The experience of intensive care is that things can suddenly take a turn for the worse without any warning. I would say that you'd have to wait at least a week before you're starting to become confident about the future. And that doesn't take into account the cognitive future. So far, we're just talking about survival."
The left hemisphere in most people is responsible for language, cognition and abstract thought. The back portion also contains the occipital lobe, where visual information is processed for the right-hand field of view. Any of these functions could be affected in the long term but doctors will not be able to assess these problems for several more weeks.
"Cognitive testing requires someone to be alert enough," said Husain. "It is unrealistic to talk about cognitive future either from looking at scans or seeing whether she can move her foot. I'd be far more guarded about that."
...
Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is "holding her own" and continues to respond to simple commands, Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., the chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson said Monday.
"I just came from Congresswoman Giffords' bedside and I'm happy to say she's holding her own," Lemole, who operated on Giffords after a bullet tore through the left side of her brain, told TODAY Monday. "And that is to say that she's doing the same things she was yesterday. And that's the most we can hope for at this time."
Giffords is in a medically induced coma but is responding to verbal commands raising a thumb, showing two fingers or wiggling toes two days after she was shot at point-blank range at a public gathering in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Ariz.
Tests indicate that the swelling in her brain has not increased, Lemole told reporters at a news conference Monday. Peak swelling typically occurs within three to five days of a traumatic brain injury.
"At this phase in the game, no change is good and we have no change," Lemole said.
Doctors were forced to remove part of Giffords' skull to reduce swelling after the bullet traveled back to front the entire length of the left side of her brain.
Giffords could remain in the ICU for a week or "maybe more," Lemole said.
...
Giffords was fortunate that the bullet did not cross the geometric center of the brain, Lemole said earlier. Early reports indicated she might have been shot in one temple with the bullet exiting the other, but Lemole said the single shot entered in the back and exited the front.
She also was fortunate that paramedics rushed her to the level-1 trauma center in Tucson, getting her into surgery within 38 minutes, doctors said.
With skilled surgery and access to early and comprehensive cognitive rehabilitation, some patients are able to make remarkable recoveries, noted Dr. Gregory O'Shanick, chairman and past medical director of the Brain Injury Association of America based in Vienna, Va.
Doctors say the six remaining victims still hospitalized all will recover physically, and they're growing increasingly optimistic about the condition of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.
"She has a 101 percent chance of surviving," said Dr. Peter Rhee, trauma chief at the University of Arizona Medical Center and a former combat surgeon who worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. "She will not die."
Rhee and other doctors now think it's likely she was shot through the front of her head and that the bullet exited the rear, meaning the last thing she saw Saturday may have been accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner taking aim with his 9mm Glock pistol.
Giffords remains in critical condition, but Rhee said Tuesday she's able to breathe on her own, although they've left a tube in place to reduce the risk of pneumonia developing.
Doctors have cut back significantly on her sedation and said she's able to make slight movements on her right side. She also has been able to follow simple commands such as moving them her thumb when asked.
