It is important for the medical staff members to fully explain that brain death is final, and that the person is dead and has no chance of ever regaining consciousness again. Family members may hold a false hope that the person is just comatose and could wake up with time or treatment. This gives the illusion that the person is still alive. Brain death - anguish for the familyīecause life support machines maintain the person’s breathing and heart rate, they are warm to the touch. A person in a vegetative state is alive and may recover to some degree, given time.
A persistent vegetative state means the person has lost higher brain functions, but their undamaged brain stem still allows essential functions like heart rate and respiration to continue. Brain death is often confused with a persistent vegetative state, but these conditions are not the same either. However, the person is alive and recovery is possible. For example, coma is similar to deep sleep, except that no amount of external stimuli can prompt the brain to become awake and alert. An electroencephalogram test shows no brain activity at all.īrain death differs from other states of unconsciousness in important ways.The person doesn’t breathe when the ventilator is switched off.There is no gagging reflex when the back of the throat is touched.The eyes don’t move when ice water is poured into the ear (oculo-vestibular reflex).The eyes don’t move when the head is moved (oculocephalic reflex).The eyes don’t blink when the eye surface is touched (corneal reflex).Some of the signs of brain death include:
Since the brain has stopped working, the person won’t breathe if the ventilator is switched off. The heart continues to beat while the ventilator delivers oxygen to the lungs (the heart can initiate its own beating without nerve impulses from the brain) but, despite the beating heart and warm skin, the person is dead. This situation can occur after, for example, a heart attack or stroke. Brain death occurs when a critically ill patient dies sometime after being placed on life support. Brain death is not the same as coma, because someone in a coma is unconscious but still alive.
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