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Relevant perception on death
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Defining Life and Death
The current definitions of life and death are based on both cardiac function and brain function. When whole brain death is diagnosed or the heart stops beating, death may be pronounced. These definitions have been discussed widely in the media over the past few months due to widely publicized cases involving brain dead patients. Life is not as explicitly defined as death. Life essentially is defined as lacking the criteria for death, from a medical standpoint.
Brain death is determined through multiple tests that determine if there is whole brain death or if there is limited brain function. An electroencephalography (EEG) test will be done to determine if there is any electrical activity in the brain. Typically the EEG is performed twice, 24 hours apart. The doctors will test the cranial nerves. The cranial nerves are tested by attempting to stimulate the eye, back of the throat and the ear. And then they will perform an apnea test, where carbon dioxide flow is increased to observe if the patient begins to wheeze. Doctors will also test to see if blood flow to the brain has ceased.
There are many myths about brain death. One of the biggest myths is that brain death is determined to benefit organ transplant programs, however this is false. Organ donation has multiple regulations that must be followed. Recipient patients are on a waiting list and the donor must be a blood and tissue match. Using brain death as criteria in determining that a person has died became the standard in 1968 (Machado). Yet, this criterion was the result of decades of research and clinical observation of patients who had suffered cardiac arrest and/or severe head trauma (Machado). Another myth is that some people believe that death...
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...resuscitation to long-term outcome.” Annals of Intensive Care. 1.45 (2011). Web. 17 February 2014.
2. Machado, Calixto, et al. “The concept of brain death did not evolve to benefit organ transplants.” Journal of Medical Ethics. 33.4 (2007): 197-200. Web. 18 February 2014.
3. Wade, Derick T., and Claire Johnston. “The permanent vegetative state: practical guidance on diagnosis and management”. British Medical Journal. 319.7213: 841–844. Web. 18 February 2014.
4. Mass Casualties: Glasgow Coma Scale. Center of Disease Control. 9 May 2003. Web. 19 February 2014.
5. Goodwyn, Wade. “The Strange Case Of Marlise Munoz and John Peter Smith Hospital”. National Public Radio. 28, January 2014. Web. 19 February 2014.
6. Singh, Maavi. “Why Hospitals And Families Still Struggle To Define Death”. National Public Radio. 10 January 2014. Web. 19 February 2014.
.... “The Strange Case of Marlise Munoz and John Peter Smith Hospital.” n.p.. 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2014.
The PBS Frontline documentary Being Mortal focuses on doctors and their patients who are dealing with chronic illness and nearing the end of their life. It investigates how some doctors are ill-equipped to talk about chronic illness and death with their patients and how this can lead to a lesser quality of life at the end of life stage for patients. In this documentary, we followed Dr. Atul Gawade on his journey to educate himself and others about the difficult emotional aspects of dying. The director, Thomas Jennings, along with Dr. Gawade, created a fantastic documentary about how it is important for doctors to talk to dying patients about their mortality. This was effectively done by offering experiences and interviews from doctors and their patients, by following the declining path of the patient, and by showing the real life emotion of the patients, families and doctors working through to the end.
In the United States and worldwide people have different culture, beliefs and attitude about death. Over the past years, death is an emotional and controversy topic that is not easy to talk about. Everyone have a different definition of what is death and when do you know that a person is really dead. In the book Death, Society, and Human Experiences by Robert J. Kastenbaum demonstrates that you are alive, even when doctors pronounce you dead.
There has been a lot of debate concerning brain death within organ donations. This means whether the person is actually alive or dead when the doctors decide to harvest the organs. Some people and even organizations argue why it is they believe an individual is alive during the process while others argue why the donor isn’t alive. This essay shows the different positions of people and organizations regarding brain death.
tukdam - in Tibetan it means intermediate state meditation or dying meditation, ground luminosity. It is a meditation between death and birth in which the mind rest for moment in its very inherent natural state of reality (Webster Merriam Online Dictionary).
Unreceptively and unresponsively. “Even the most intensely painful stimuli evoke no vocal or other response, not even a groan, withdrawal of a limb or quickening of respiration,” (Ward 28). No movements or spontaneous breathing (being aided by a respirator does not count). Doctors must follow patients for at least one time of day to make sure they make no spontaneous muscular movements or spontaneous breathing. To try the latter, physicians are to bend off the respirator for three transactions to determine if the patient attempts to take a breather on his own (the trial).No reflexes. To look for reflexes, doctors are to shine a light in the eyes to make sure the pupils are enlarged. Muscles are tested. Ice water is poured in the ears. Doctors should use “electroencephalography, a test of great confirmatory value,”(Ward 32) to make sure that the patient has flat brain waves. After none of the criterions respond to the recipient, the doctor must “legally” declare the person brain dead. This is where family members often have difficult deciding whether they should continue having their loved one under life support. The respirator will continue to keep the persons organs alive for a certain period of time but family members must confront with a decision if they would want to donate or continue to have them
The criteria or definition of brain death was re-examined in 1968 by a committee at Harvard Medical School and is part of the criteria used today. They defined it as when a patient; is unresponsive to stimulus; cannot move or breathe without the aid of a ventilator and has no brain stem reflexes. Several tests are done in order to determine if a patient meets these criteria and this can be done by physicians and neurologists. A brain dead patient is legally dead and a death cer...
Brain death occurs when brain cells, which cannot regenerate themselves, are injured or dead. This results in brain death as the brain becomes starved of oxygen. One can only be pronounced brain dead, by a neurologist and even then, a number of criteria must be met, some of these include; unresponsiveness to stimuli; no reflexes and an inability to breathe unaided by a machine(Goila and Pawar, 2009). At this point one is put on a ventilator. A ventilator is a machine which maintains the circulation of blood, oxygen and nutrients to organs around the body. To put a patient on life support is very costly to the family of the patient and even the hospital.
John L McIntosh. (2003) . Handbook of Death and Dying. Volume 1: The Presence of Death. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference.
The concept between life and death cannot simply exist without one another, where the topic is widely discussed throughout “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi. This memoir explores Paul’s definition of death as he passes through the distinct “stages” of his life. As Paul progresses through each stage, he views death differently as he transformed from a student to a neurosurgeon, neurosurgeon to a patient, and eventually becoming a father, where he needed to take full responsibility as an adult.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
If brain cells die or are damaged because of a stroke, symptoms of that damage start to show in the parts of the body controlled by those brain cells.
‘Being Mortal’ was a fascinating read about a young man who grows in the understanding of death and dying and what matters most in the end. We all have constraints and no matter how well we take care of ourselves and live our life, death comes to us all; and how we meet that end can be very different depending on how we want to spend the last moments of our journey. Medical science has its power and pushes the boundaries of life and death, but it can’t always save you, it won’t always work out the way that you hope it does. Doctors like Atul Gawande struggle to fix everyone’s problem and cure the patients who come into the hospital; but as the book progresses Atul finds that there are ways to handle patients’ lives and it doesn’t always involve
Robert Matz; Daniel P. Sudmasy; Edward D. Pallegrino. "Euthanasia: Morals and Ethics." Archives of Internal Medicine 1999: p1815 Aug. 9, 1999 .
The abstract idea of life cannot be explained by such simple ideas as being animated, breathing, or speaking. Ordinary machines in this century can perform all of these basic functions. The quandary with defining death is not as abstract and elusive as that of life. The problem of defining life and death has plagued philosophers and the religious bodies for thousands of years for one reason; each philosophy or religion has tried to define the meaning of life and death from only their certain perspective. The seemingly appropriate approach to this problem would be to understand the ideas presented in various philosophies and religions and through this knowledge create a new definition for each idea of life and death. The movie Blade Runner has taken this exact approach in its attempt to finally define life and death in a logical and un-spiritual manner. By taking the position that death is a concrete idea that can be explained, Blade Runner accomplishes the task of interpreting the idea of life in terms death. Through this approach, the meaning of life is redefined to accommodate for the existence of the replicants. Also, as a result of this novel notion of life, it is apparent that humans and replicants never actually live, even though they are alive.