Word: flatted
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Moon Walker's agility derives from its stainless-steel tubular legs, which have hinged, almost human knees, and flat, hooflike feet with rippled soles to give them traction. The legs operate in pairs, one leg of each pair supporting the walker's weight while the other leg is in motion. They are moved by battery-operated electric motors and controlled by a four-way lever that is so sensitive a multiple-amputee child can operate it with his chin...
When the physician decides to support the patient with mechanical aids after the EEG has gone flat, says Surgeon Charles F. Zukoski III of the VA Hospital in Nashville, he runs the risk of letting the machine become his master. Slowly but inexorably, the blood pressure will fall until it can no longer support the kidneys or other viral organs. "This," says Dr. Zukoski, "is an agonal type of death. We can carry the prolongation of so-called life...
Flexible Rule. At Massachusetts General Hospital, the criterion laid down by Neurologist Schwab is that the EEG must remain flat for about 24 hours, and stay flat despite external stimuli such as a loud noise. There must be no muscular or pupillary reflexes; the patient must have no heartbeat or respiration of his own-only what the machines are providing. "After that," says Dr. Schwab, "the physician in charge can agree to turn off the artificial aids and pronounce the patient dead...
...long the EEG must remain flat depends on circumstances. After barbiturate poisoning or long exposure to extreme cold, a patient might have a flat EEG for several hours and still be capable of full recovery. Dr. Schwab would leave the precise timing to the physician's judgment in each case...
Sweden's Dr. Clarence Crafoord, one of the world's greatest heart-lung surgeons, caused a public outcry earlier this month when he suggested that a person should be declared dead when a flat EEG pattern shows that his brain has definitely and irrevocably ceased to function. Dr. Crafoord was concerned about truly hopeless cases, but the kin of patients being kept alive with mechanical aids jumped to the conclusion that he meant the devices should be shut off, the patients declared dead, and their organs used for transplants...