Robert J. Kastenbaum's Death, Society, And Human Experiences

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. When a person is battling between life and death physicians have to check for signs of death. Kastebaum states that “the most common signs of death have been lack of respiration, pulse, and heartbeat, as well as failure to respond to stimuli such as light, movement, and pain. Lower body temperature and

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