Karl-Heinz Wildmoser Senior died this morning

[Bazinga]

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,708874,00.html

Er war eine Münchner Legende. Karl-Heinz Wildmoser führte die Sechziger nicht nur, er war ihr Inbegriff. Unter ihm erlebten die "Löwen" eine ungeahnte Blüte - und dann einen Niedergang, von dem sie sich bis heute nicht erholt haben. Jetzt ist der Ex-Präsident mit 71 an Herzstillstand gestorben.

He was one of the Honorable Persons (co-judges) in a trial that I was a witness in back in December. He looked full of life then, but his heart just stopped this morning. 

[Peter]

RIP. You were a witness in a trial? Intriguing, please tell us more.

[Bazinga]

Someone was fired and the firee sued the firer to get their job back.  I testified for the firer that the person suing should stay fired.  During the trial, a witness for the firee told of an event that pretty much sank their own side (shot themselves in the foot so to speak) and Karl-Heinz cupped his face in his hands and shook his head trying not to laugh. It was just one of those moments in time that you will never forget. 

[Mary]

You testified against a (former) fellow work colleague?
It must have been a bad thing they did to get fired and it is a public service to everyone that you tell us what she/he did?
 

[Bazinga]

Have you ever known a narcissistic sociopath?  Nuff said.

[KingCape]

I know one and believe involuntary euthanasia should be a legal recourse for dealing with such people.
The risk with these people is that they often appear normal on the outside until you annoy them in some way.

On a side note, does anywhere in the world still officially carry out lobotomies?

P.s. I heard a rumour that a certain Sith lord is back in the forum.  Not that this has anything to do with sociopaths. 

[Bellytubby2]

Lobotomies are indeed still carried out - although by methods far removed from the common perception as portrayed within "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest". And certainly not in the numbers previously considered appropriate - up to 50,000 in the UK in the 50's and 60's. Being an expat Scot...I suggest that like me, you stay well away from Dundee should you feel an 'episode' coming on - Dundee being one of only 2 places in the UK still to carry out this procedure
As a former psychiatric nurse with 10 years experience, I never encountered a single patient who either required, nor had previously received a lobotomy - but I still stayed away from Dundee!

[William]

Do you have any reliable figures for this procedure still being carried out in the UK?
I struggle to understand how such a radical and invasive surgical technique could still be used in modern times.
Under what conditions would it be used nowadays, i.e. what medical symptoms?  Hard to imagine a patient's family signing off on something like this.

[Bellytubby2]

I suspect William that your description of the surgery as being radical and invasive is based upon preconceptions from yesteryear - and procedure which breaks the skin, is after all, invasive and I am not sure something which is now in excess of 60 years old could still be called 'radical'. But I do take your point

This procedure is carried out now only very rarely and is used to enhance quality of life rather than as before, as a means to control symptoms. The area targeted within the brain is much more specific - rather than the wholesale destruction of matter previously carried out with frontal lobotomies. In the UK it is used (I have been out of psychiatry for 16 years so things may have changed - but it remains still a treatment option) only for very severe, non-responsive depression and OCD. My memory is patchy but I am not sure that clinical evidence suggested many positive outcomes for this desperate group - I could be wrong. Informed patient consent had to be given

Since the introduction of lobotomies in the 50s, there have been many significant improvements to more efficacious, cleaner drug treatments and also the development of other therapeutic interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy. These breakthroughs have seen a proportionate decline in the need for the very old incarceration and surgical approach, fewer institutions and many more sufferers successfully re-integrated into the community

Beyond my limited info here...get Googling if you are looking for a nearby surgeon!!!

[William]

Yep, it definitely is based on the old way that these procedures used to be carried out.  My father was a psychiatric nurse and he mentioned a few cases where it was carried out... would have been the 60's or early 70's I think.  It sounds a bit extreme to me... the stuff of nightmares.