Death & Dying Term Paper
Life support is a controversial and sensitive topic. When someone is on life support, their brain is completely unconscious. Although their brain is no longer in an active, natural function, a life support machine keeps their organs alive and functioning. Life support is administered during an emergency. It helps to keep a person’s body alive, while their brain is dead. Brain death is an irreversible condition and doctors conduct many tests before determining this diagnosis.
There are two ways in which a person dies: cardiopulmonary death or brain death. Both are formal and legal definitions of death. Cardiopulmonary death is the irreversible loss of function in the heart and lungs. People who have suffered irreparable brain damage (such as head trauma or stroke) are diagnosed with brain death, which is “the irreversible cessation of all brain functions," according to Health System University of Miami.
Many may ask, how can someone be diagnosed as “brain dead”? Well this is very simple. Brainstem is the lowest part of the brain in which is connected to the spinal cord. This part of the brain is responsible for most of the automatic functions of the body that are essential for life: breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure and swallowing, said the National Health System in Britain. The brain stem also makes the exchange of information between the brain and the rest of the body, so it is essential for the functions of awareness, knowledge and movement. There is no possibility of consciousness once the brainstem is permanently damaged and this adds to the inability to breathe or maintain body functions, which is the individual's death, says the NHS.
When someone is brain dead, there is no flow of bl...
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...or someone to latch themselves on the endless possibility that someone could “wake up” after being brain dead for so long. The scientific and medical world have advanced in ways that a normal person could understand. They have specifics testing in which they can determined whether a person is completely brain dead, or simply in a coma in which they have a chance of waking up.
No one should depend on a machine in order to sustain their life. Being brain dead could be a heartbreaking and very emotional subject to discuss among family and friends. It is understandable that some people cannot grasp their loved one’s irreversible death, or understand how their heart is still beating yet their brain in unconscious, but dragging their life and binding their loved ones to be held to a life support machine can seem pretty selfish and careless on their part.
cortex, the thinking part of the brain, id dead. The brain stem, the part of the
The Harvard Criteria is defined as followed; if a person is unreceptive and unresponsive, there is no movement and no spontaneous respiration or other spontaneous muscular movement, no reflexes, a flat EEG, and lastly no circulation to or within the brain. Kastenbaum explains that there is different type of conditions that might make a patient nonresponsive. Which “several of these conditions could be mistaken for brain death by uninformed observers (Kastanbuam, 45). Some of the conditions that Kastenbaum talks about are akinetic mutism, catatonia, coma, or the locked-in sydrome. He explains that these conditions are different and that one similarity they all have in common is an “impression of terminal no responsiveness. By contrast, we might be impressed by the nonpurposive reflexes and grimaces of a person in a persistent or permanent vegetative state and thereby persuade ourselves that the person is still there (Kastanbaum, 45). If we follow the traditional determination of death, and compare it with the Harvard Criteria we notice that in order to determine if a person is dead they would not display any signs of being alive. If patient are showing signs of being alive why wouldn’t physicians consider that. It does not mean that because they are nonresponsive that they are brain dead especially if they are displaying signs of being alive. Kastabum states that it is a “harrowing similarity to being buried alive” (Kastabum, 45). A person can be brain dead but does not mean they are dead, the person that make the decisions on their ending of life should really look more deeper into seeing if the patient is completely gone, but displaying signs of being alive means you are alive disregarding of what a physician might
Ken Berger believes that Life Support for elderly patient isn’t benefiting them and is actually causing more harm to them. According to the “Dying on life support: is it fair? Article The Author Dr. Berger states in most cases when the end is near should doctors prolong life artificially? Dr. Berger the medical doctor at the Bellevue Hospital in New York City states how patients that are on life support in the intensive care unit are not showing signs of likelihood of surviving. A very well-known patients of Dr. Berger who is severely ill and he isn’t showing any signs of getting better but actually is showing signs of his body getting ill (Leung n.p). By law Dr. Berger must keep him alive which, he isn’t very pleased about it because he finds it very useful for the staff and also for the
Scientists are on the brink of doing the unthinkable-replenishing the brains of people who have suffered strokes or head injuries to make them whole again. If that is not astonishing enough, they think they may be able to reverse paralysis. The door is at last open to lifting the terrifying sentence these disorders still decree-loss of physical function, cognitive skills, memory, and personality.
Dealing with someone dying is not something that is going to be fun or enjoyable. Death comes to everyone, none of us can duck and dodge it. Death of natural causes is not something that can be controlled by anyone, but it is important for people to be with those that are dying. When someone you know is dying, whether they are friends or family it’s very important for them to feel loved and not alone. It is also important that the opinions and thoughts of the patient be taken into consideration because they are going through something that no one can say they relate to. In dealing with death, there are many emotions that are felt by the sick patient and their friends and family. In A Very Easy Death
Death is a frequent visitor of the intensive care unit; patients in this area are at the very peak of their illnesses, many of them being nonverbal. As well as figuring out how to communicate with your patients, one might also have to accept the fact that the case could be medically futile and nothing can be done other than make the patient as comfortable as you can for the remainder of their stay. Recent news headlines have brought this topic closer to home, often if you are not in the health care field or studying to enter the health care field you may hear about these topics on television or the radio but they do not take up place in your conscious thoughts. Hearing about Brittany Maynard made me stop and ask myself what would I do, if I were in her shoes, or if I was a nurse in the hospital that was treating her, and the answer is I do not know. Ethical dilemmas such as this are complicated and there is often not a black and white answer, we live in the gray areas, it is about finding what is right for that patient and being able to accept the fact that their beliefs may not be the same as your
Ethics are always going to be an issue because of the different race, belief, etc. But should pulling the plug on life-support be a part of that issue? Absolutely not.
This goes back to the moral and ethical standard we have created for society as well as the multiple misconceptions concerning DNR’s and making the decision to no be resuscitated. Often times the decision to not be recesistatated is seen as human beings playing God, and is often aligned with a person committing suicide and often seen as a selfish decision. This is definitely a misconception as DNR are given for several reasons sometime to remove financial strain from family members and sometimes to simply so a person won’t have to live life as a vegetable who can’t not breath or advocate for themselves in anyway shape of form. While I do not this I would sign a DNR I do understand the benefits of making the decision to essentially end your
The two brain scans show the contrast between a conscious patient and of a brain dead patient. The colourful or bright region in the normal conscious brain scan highlights areas which are active, preforming tasks such as, thinking, involuntary and voluntary movement. The image which shows brain death is completely black, suggesting no brain activity is taking place in comparison to a person with normal consciousness. The purple region around the brain represents the cerebral fluid around the brain.
The brain stem is also able to carry out these actions even when someone is asleep. To fully understand how crucial the brain is to survival, one must understand the functions of the brain stem. 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).
The term brain death is defined as loss of function to the brain that is irreversible in all parts, even the brain stem. Brain death can happen to someone who has suffered a massive head injury. There is a series of tests, if result positively, can mean that the person is clinically deceased. First, there is a look at medical history to find prior brain dysfunctions. The cause of the possible brain death is then looked at to determine if it is possible to be reversed. If there is no evidence of medications being the cause of the brain death, there is a complete neurological exam taken. This exam includes: checking to see if there is a response to stimuli, not including spinal reflexes, pupils are absent and have no response to light, there are no facial or eye movements, no gag ...
Imagine visiting your 85-year-old mother in the hospital after she has a debilitating stroke. You find out that, in order to survive, she requires a feeding tube and antibiotics to fight an infection. She once told you that no matter what happened, she wants to live. But the doctor refuses further life-sustaining treatment. When you ask why, you are told, in effect, "The time has come for your mother to die. All we will provide is comfort care."
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.
If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
The problem explored in the article was stated as a problem statement. In this article, the authors explain about the stressful situations of families having loved ones die in the intensive care unit. They also state that this problem is very important because there is poor communication between staff, physicians, and surrogates in the plan of care for end-of-life measures (Lautrette et al., 2007).