Vegetative Brain Death

When a patient is unable to make decisions for himself or herself, their caregivers and those who know them are appointed to make the decisions based on what the patient would have wanted. This is called surrogate decision making. According to the article Terri Schiavo and End-of-Life Decisions “when surrogate decision makers and caregivers cannot agree upon what that choice would have been, they may turn to the courts to determine either what the now-incapacitated patient would have chosen or who is best suited to choose as the patient would have” (Mathes, 2005)

Brain dead is when a person is in the state that they aren’t alive without the life support provided by the hospital. Causes of severe brain damage that lead to brain death would be experiencing trauma to the brain(car crash, gunshot wound, fall or blow to the brain), cerebrovascular injury(stroke or aneurysm), anoxia(drowning or heart attack), brain tumor, severe illness, and brain infection. This is not a coma or persistent negative state. It is determined in the hospital by one or more physicians not associated with a transplantation team(Finger Lakes Donor Recovery Network,

The use of high brain death could be misconstrued. The definition of high brain death could apply to the loss of consciousness or sleep. The use of high brain death may cause accidental termination of life. The person could recover from high brain death.

Per the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a diagnosis of brain death is considered legally and clinically dead. It is evidenced by coma, absence of brainstem reflexes and apnea, and is defined as an irreversible loss of brain function. (Brain Death) As a healthcare provider, it can be easy to make a

In this paper, I will be discussing ways to test Mary’s brain injury. Mary obtained her brain inju-ry by diving in a pool and hitting her head. Mary was shortly removed from the pool and sent to the hospital by the ambulance. Mary was unconscious for quite a while, but the next day re-gained consciousness. However, with the Glascow Coma Scale, Mary’s injuries will be tested and below you will find out how.

There have been many variations of what the definition of total death should be over time. Until the Harvard Medical Committee formed their definition in 1968 the common definition of death was that, once cessation of cardiovascular activity occurred, a person was considered dead. This was changed when the Harvard Medical Committee released their own definition, stating the adoption of the “irreversible coma” as being the new standard for determining end of life (Jonas, 132). Presently in the United States, the commonly accepted definition of death is formed under the Determination of Death Act which essentially states that “permanent cessation of the integrated functioning of the organism as a whole” (Morris, 55) and includes both cardiovascular function and brain function as the qualifiers for death. There are two positions present now that are laid out by Edmund Pellegrino in Controversies in the Determination of Death a White Paper of the President 's Council on Bioethics: Position One states that the current neurological standard is not biologically sound and should be redefined, and Position Two states that the neurological standard is biologically sound and should not be redefined (Pellegrino, 52-58). In this paper, I will argue that the neurological standard to determine whether a human being is dead should remain the primary method because it states that a human being needs to be working as a whole in order to be alive. This means that, for a person to be considered

Plus, the survivor would even be incapable of feeding himself. A brain injury also impacts a person’s ability to speak accurately. Moreover, the coma survivor will most likely face emotional damage as they will randomly burst out in aggressive moods and forget events that are only three minutes old. In addition to this, once an individual wakes up from a coma, their vision will be altered to a point where they will tend to see doubled objects and severe blurriness. On top of all this, a person will constantly feel exhausted and restless. Hence, the coma survivor will feel very weak. A person’s hearing perspective also changes, as they become sensitive to loud or high-pitched noises and can experience persistent ringing noises in ears. Furthermore, a coma survivor will encounter a drastic loss in their capacity to smell as well, some will even lose their smell completely; this is called Anosmia. As most know, smell and taste are strongly related, thus, impacting a coma survivor’s taste buds; causing them to have a bad taste in their mouth and taste food differently.

A biotech company in the United States was granted ethical permission to sign up 20 brain dead patients to test whether parts to their central nervous system can be brought back to life. They plan to regenerate the brains of people who are considered brain dead using a combination of stem cells and laser simulation. For example, at the Anupam Hospital in Rudrapur they have participants who have been certified to be dead and kept alive through life support. They are monitored using brain imaging equipment to check for signs of regeneration, specifically in the upper spinal cord, which is the lower region of the brain stem that controls breathing and heartbeat. Athough there are patients who still have complete bodily functions like blood circulation,

I have never experienced having to make the decision to take someone off of life support. Although, my cousins mother overdosed on drugs which caused her to be put on life support. Her mother wanted to keep her on life support but it was hard on her kids. Sometimes part of the problem is the families not being able to let go. In this situation the doctors still respected the wishes of the family.

A person is considered brain dead when she or he no longer has any neurological activity in the brain - meaning that no electrical impulse are being sent between the brain cell. When declared “brain dead” the body is being helped by a ventilator that helps the body keep blood and oxygen moving. With the help of technology doctors can make the body do some of the things it used to when the person was alive. But even though the body is being kept “alive” the patient has a very low chance of recovery. In my opinion those patients that are declared “brain dead” by the doctors should be put down and allowing them to rest in peace. I know this might sound a little harsh especially when we're talking about a close friend or loved one. Since the

Early signs of cerebral hypoxia are restlessness and anxiety, with confusion and loss of consciousness occurring in later stages. Older patients are especially susceptible to reduced perfusion to vital organs

Usually either patients or families have the legal rights to determine what medical course to take with the patient when it comes to the diagnosis of death, in this case the family's conflict needs be considered. The healthcare staff involved in the patient’s care must communicate with the family members during this difficult time. If the patient is determined to be dead, the family will need support from the health care staff that has been involved in the patients care, all available hospital resources, including medical, nursing, social work, ethics, and pastoral care will be a good resource for the family members. Lawyers will usually advise health care staff to work with the family in the most compassionate way possible, the lawyers should be there to help with any conflict between the family members, and this will also help the organization against any future malpractice suits against the health care staff and organization.

Once an individual is pronounced as brain death that means no chance exists of recovery or survival. Unfortunate events most often cause the occurrence of brain death. Some examples of these types of events are car accidents, falls and contribute to fights and brawls. Social aspects are conducive in causing brain death such as drug overdose. Medical diagnoses, for instance, brain tumors, brain bleeds and stroke have been known to cause brain death. In order for a patient to be declared brain death, two physicians must conduct a brain death assessment and have absolute certainty. The brain death exam consists of identifying signs of complete unawareness, no response to pain, inability to open eyes, no reflexes, no movement and no ability to

same as coma. Humans can recover from comas, but not from brain death. Brain death is FINAL.

These questions are difficult for any of us to answer - even more so if we are dealing with a situation in which we may have to answer one or more of these questions. Yet, for some of us, these questions are all too real. If someone is considered to be in a vegetative state and the doctor determines that they are not