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Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

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Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#101

Post by kaybe »

madilonts wrote: post #35

Well, this event happens enough that it might be worth studying the benefit of oxygen therapy, but I'd be very careful about the conclusions you draw from this. Maybe the oxygen had a substantial positive effect, or maybe the child would've recovered on her own. We really don't know, since there are other reports of children who have good neurological outcome despite terrible prognosis [1] [2]. I'm suspicious because…

The toddler fence proved to be non-toddler-proof. It can happen. It's not like the parents didn't try.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#102

Post by mabbo »

refurb wrote: post #93
mabbo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what's nice with a single payer health system. The same cost center has to either pay for disability related costs, or pay for treatments that would potentially end the disability related costs. It's a sane investment by the government here in Canada to make such choices. On the other hand, if your health insurance is through one system and your disability insurance through another, you have everyone optimizi…

Does Canada pay for hyperbaric oxygen therapy?

I have no idea. But if it's proven, available, and makes sense then generally it will be available with prescription for it.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#103

Post by gumby »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #88
dna_polymerase wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The startling regrowth of tissue in this case occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration. Although it’s impossible to conclude from this single case if the sequential application of normobaric oxygen then HBOT would be more effective than HBOT alone, in the absence of HBOT therapy, short duration, repetitive normobaric oxygen therapy may be an option u…

>we really are in the dark ages still No, we'd be in the dark ages if we were in still the dark ages. Our current level of progress would seem like science fiction or even magic as little as a century ago. I think I understand your point, that we have so much more to learn we're not even able to quantify what we don't know. But this is not some kind of endless quest. We're dealing with a machine in the end with finit…

>But this is not some kind of endless quest. We're dealing with a machine in the end with finite complexity and eventually it will be understood fundamentally.

I'm guessing you don't work in the medical field (I have). First their's the emergent complexity of scale (after all the universe consists of a finite number of a small number of fundamental particles). Second, the human body (and all the pathogens etc) are object code highly optimized over billions of years. We understand almost nothing about how it all works. We can transcribe most of a human's genome but barely understand how even a tiny part of it works.

> I don't think I would be surprised if the most common diseases were eliminated in the next 100 to 200 years.

The most common causes of death have been pretty much eliminated in the wealthy world over the last 50 years. People still die, just of a wider variety of less common reasons. In the limiting case, each person will die of a unique cause.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#104

Post by blauditore »

First paragraph:

> she spent 15 minutes submerged in a swimming pool

This seems highly implausible, given she survived. Also, how would they know the moment she dropped in?

Further down:

> up to 15 minutes

Ah ok. From what I know, brain damage starts occurring even after 2-3 minutes without air (for adults), so I suppose it was rather on the lower end. Does anybody know a bit more about this?

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#105

Post by taeric »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #94
nerdponx wrote: post #2

This is approaching Star Trek levels of medicine. Congratulations to the team who discovered and pull this off, and of course my heart goes out to the family and their child. Drowning is very serious and very scary. Edit: somewhat unrelated since this girl fell into an unattended pool, but it's important to know the signs of drowning, which are not what you see in movies: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-spot-signs…

We are not approaching Star Trek levels of medicine. In Star Trek, they can heal wounds by shining a light on them. They can erase and alter people's memory. They can scan for problems using a handheld device. They can cure blindness with a visor. We are nowhere near any of that. I know this doesn't really matter much, but if we're going to throw in hyperbole, it should at least be somewhat accurate. I think people a…

I think you have to keep charity in mind on that compliment. It was meant as high praise for the medical achievement of curing someone. Not as reductionism to shining a light and magically curing something. More, that was pretty clear just in the comment.

To that end, I'm curious how Star Trek is a useful iconic yardstick? My assertion would be that it is not. It is a common one. But there is nothing useful in it. Precisely because you have to cherry pick what parts you use and how you interpret them. For example, you interpreted it to refer to the method of curing. The comment was taking it for the level of the sickness that was cured. Both are valid places to look.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#106

Post by Insanity »

graedus wrote: post #33
gambiting wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter in any way? Is it even a fact worth observing?

There is a stereotype that "black people can't swim". May be local to the US.

I have never heard that here in Belgium. I also see black people in the pool quite frequently.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#107

Post by pkaye »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #64
sp332 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've ever been in a dialysis clinic, you might see how someone from a culture that doesn't have them would view us as being in the dark ages.

For those who have no idea why a dialysis clinic makes us look like the Dark Ages - could you elaborate?

It is a pretty crude process using a bulky machine to do only a tiny fraction of what our kidneys can do. It over/under filters different parts of your blood and can create side effects. It doesn't do most of the regulatory functions of your kidneys. You are stuck on it for many hours every (other) day. There are risks of infection. You cannot stay on one mode of treatment your whole life. If you get a transplant you are stuck on anti-rejection medicines your whole life and the kidneys may last for 10-15 years in the best cases. Then it is back to dialysis or another transplant.

I happen to be a dialysis patient (just recently) due to a uncommon autoimmune disease harming my kidneys. Maybe 1 in 1500 chance of you having it but that is uncommon enough that doctors don't have a fully understanding of what exactly happens. There is no blood test or meaningful treatment. Through all my experience in the medical system we are truly living in the dark ages. Other than a few common classes of illnesses, they have no clue how to treat you.

Kidney disease doesn't seem to have much advancement in treatment because there is already some crude way to keep people alive. There are some efforts going on with artificial kidneys that fit in your body. One in particular https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/11/165666/artificial-kidney-r.... But I see it struggle to get funding over the years. I see every day shitty tech startups funded for 10x the amount in that project and produce nothing meaningful.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#108

Post by gumby »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #74
SmellTheGlove wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. Lifeguards will tell you it's part of their training. It may be non-PC, but the statistics say that when you're watching the water, African-American children are more likely to drown. I don't know if it's specifically African American children, or black children (of any origin) in general. I've heard it's socioeconomic - potentially less likely to be able to swim, but I'm not sure honestly. If you're wa…

Not just African Americans I'm sure. People from Suriname etc as well. It's okay to just say black.

I appreciate this comment but in this case I would disagree.

If the discussion were about a physiological distinction [+] sure. But this discussion was about social/cultural issues that specifically distinguish swimming ability rates among African Americans in the USA versus whites in the USA.

Which is interesting, because you can also see these distinctions, without racial differentiation, in groups world wide who do / do not live near large/deep bodies of water. But in the US case race is a larger determiner regardless of the physical environment. That distinction is interesting.

[+] A black friend of mine once said, "I can't swim -- I sink", a reference to the belief that people of African origin have less subcutaneous fat and therefore higher density, so swimming is harder. I have no idea if this physiological property is true or not but the belief is widespread. I have one white parent and swim like a fish. Everyone on that side of my family loves to swim. Hmm...

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#109

Post by technofire »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #94
nerdponx wrote: post #2

This is approaching Star Trek levels of medicine. Congratulations to the team who discovered and pull this off, and of course my heart goes out to the family and their child. Drowning is very serious and very scary. Edit: somewhat unrelated since this girl fell into an unattended pool, but it's important to know the signs of drowning, which are not what you see in movies: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-spot-signs…

We are not approaching Star Trek levels of medicine. In Star Trek, they can heal wounds by shining a light on them. They can erase and alter people's memory. They can scan for problems using a handheld device. They can cure blindness with a visor. We are nowhere near any of that. I know this doesn't really matter much, but if we're going to throw in hyperbole, it should at least be somewhat accurate. I think people a…

> if we're going to throw in hyperbole, it should at least be somewhat accurate

Exaggeration is an essential part of the definition of hyperbole. Merriam-Webster literally gives the definition of the word simply as "extravagant exaggeration."[1]

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hyperbole

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#110

Post by tmzt »

gumby wrote: post #103
WhitneyLand wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we really are in the dark ages still No, we'd be in the dark ages if we were in still the dark ages. Our current level of progress would seem like science fiction or even magic as little as a century ago. I think I understand your point, that we have so much more to learn we're not even able to quantify what we don't know. But this is not some kind of endless quest. We're dealing with a machine in the end with finit…

>But this is not some kind of endless quest. We're dealing with a machine in the end with finite complexity and eventually it will be understood fundamentally. I'm guessing you don't work in the medical field (I have). First their's the emergent complexity of scale (after all the universe consists of a finite number of a small number of fundamental particles). Second, the human body (and all the pathogens etc) are ob…

To extend your metaphor a little, we can transcribe a pseudo source-code (nuclear DNA), a preprocessor or macro language that we have learned a little about (epigenetic regulation), and there are still two levels of IR after that. The object code might be the trillions of combinations of amino acids that make up the proteome.
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