What exactly is “brain dead” - medically speaking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The brain stem can still be functioning if the rest of the brain is gone and you can still breathe, but there's no chance of recovery. It took my grandmother a day to finally die after they took her off the ventilator following her stroke but her brain scan showed she was gone.

That’s not actually brain dead. Brain stem, which controls breathing, has to cease function too.

I believe a person who is breathing on their own, but is not expected to regain any sort of consciousness, is considered to be in a persistent vegetative state. This is more complicated since the only "life support" is fluids and nutrition. There are a LOT of stories and court cases concerning how to manage the care of someone in a persistent vegetative state. In some cases, the nutrition is stopped causing death after a few days, in other cases, the person hangs on for years. There are some outlying stories about people who unexpectedly "wake up" after being in a vegetative state for extended periods but the definition of "waking up" is vague. It can be very difficult to identify how much consciousness a person with severe brain damage has.

That is why these people are not candidates for organ donation. They are not dead.

Brain death is different. They are dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that’s when the brain stem is still functioning at some level but there isn’t a way for the brain to recover.

Yet we know that people do recover from being brain dead.

No we do not. No one has ever recovered from being brain dead. They are dead.

Even in the report, they admitted that the brain dead person pulled his knees up to his chest while on the cutting table. Your paralyzing drugs work really well, but you have to be more generous so people can’t yell at you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that’s when the brain stem is still functioning at some level but there isn’t a way for the brain to recover.

Yet we know that people do recover from being brain dead.

No we do not. No one has ever recovered from being brain dead. They are dead.

Even in the report, they admitted that the brain dead person pulled his knees up to his chest while on the cutting table. Your paralyzing drugs work really well, but you have to be more generous so people can’t yell at you.

He was not brain dead. You didn’t understand the article at all. It wasn’t even about brain dead patients.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that’s when the brain stem is still functioning at some level but there isn’t a way for the brain to recover.

Yet we know that people do recover from being brain dead.

No we do not. No one has ever recovered from being brain dead. They are dead.

Even in the report, they admitted that the brain dead person pulled his knees up to his chest while on the cutting table. Your paralyzing drugs work really well, but you have to be more generous so people can’t yell at you.

He was not brain dead. You didn’t understand the article at all. It wasn’t even about brain dead patients.

It was about expanding the meaning of dead. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that’s when the brain stem is still functioning at some level but there isn’t a way for the brain to recover.

Yet we know that people do recover from being brain dead.

No we do not. No one has ever recovered from being brain dead. They are dead.

Even in the report, they admitted that the brain dead person pulled his knees up to his chest while on the cutting table. Your paralyzing drugs work really well, but you have to be more generous so people can’t yell at you.

He was not brain dead. You didn’t understand the article at all. It wasn’t even about brain dead patients.

It was about expanding the meaning of dead. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

You’re making me rethink whether brain dead people are actually dead. The fact that you’re still able to post on DCUM while clearly lacking any cerebral perfusion is simply amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the organs of a cadaver be used for transplant?

I do not believe they take organs from living people, even if the person is brain dead. Doctors will keep a person on life support while they assemble the personnel and equipment they need and then they will take the organs very soon after death.

What’s supposed to happen when the person starts moving?

Depends on if you are trying to write a sensational story, or not.

The truth is that any individual who did "start moving," did so as part of the testing process to see whether or not there was movement in response to stimuli. So it worked to identify them as not a candidate.

But that doesn't sell advertising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the organs of a cadaver be used for transplant?

I do not believe they take organs from living people, even if the person is brain dead. Doctors will keep a person on life support while they assemble the personnel and equipment they need and then they will take the organs very soon after death.

What’s supposed to happen when the person starts moving?

Depends on if you are trying to write a sensational story, or not.

The truth is that any individual who did "start moving," did so as part of the testing process to see whether or not there was movement in response to stimuli. So it worked to identify them as not a candidate.

But that doesn't sell advertising.

In a perfect world, this would be truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the organs of a cadaver be used for transplant?

I do not believe they take organs from living people, even if the person is brain dead. Doctors will keep a person on life support while they assemble the personnel and equipment they need and then they will take the organs very soon after death.

What’s supposed to happen when the person starts moving?

Apparently, you sedate them so they stop moving and finish the procedure.

Sorry to further confuse you, but brain dead people can even sometimes move involuntarily (not voluntarily), because of intact spinal cord reflexes that can proceed without any brain input at all.

Have you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off move or run around? That chicken is still not coming back to life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that’s when the brain stem is still functioning at some level but there isn’t a way for the brain to recover.

Yet we know that people do recover from being brain dead.

No we do not. No one has ever recovered from being brain dead. They are dead.

Even in the report, they admitted that the brain dead person pulled his knees up to his chest while on the cutting table. Your paralyzing drugs work really well, but you have to be more generous so people can’t yell at you.

He was not brain dead. You didn’t understand the article at all. It wasn’t even about brain dead patients.

It was about expanding the meaning of dead. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

No, actually it was the op-ed piece that was about "expanding the meaning of dead," and it was very poorly phrased, and a very bad idea to phrase it that way. What they are actually suggesting is expanding the scope of organ donation to include people with no chance of meaningful recovery, but not brain dead. These people are ALREADY being disconnected from life support by their families legally and ethically every single day. The only difference is that they are just not typically candidates for organ donation, because they are not brain dead (see the story one poster described above about her relative who could not donate even though they wanted to). The article is talking about changing that. They are not really altering the meaning of the word "dead." They are altering the definition of who is allowed to become a donor. I'm surprised this error wasn't caught and corrected by medical editors, but it is an op-ed page not a medical journal, and the editors apparently lacked the expertise to catch and correct it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the organs of a cadaver be used for transplant?

I do not believe they take organs from living people, even if the person is brain dead. Doctors will keep a person on life support while they assemble the personnel and equipment they need and then they will take the organs very soon after death.

What’s supposed to happen when the person starts moving?

Depends on if you are trying to write a sensational story, or not.

The truth is that any individual who did "start moving," did so as part of the testing process to see whether or not there was movement in response to stimuli. So it worked to identify them as not a candidate.

But that doesn't sell advertising.

In a perfect world, this would be truth.

Even in an imperfect world. It's just reality, PP.

[Anonymous]

16:42 is silly. The cardiologists who wrote the article said exactly what they meant. Stop trying to override them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:42 is silly. The cardiologists who wrote the article said exactly what they meant. Stop trying to override them.

DP.

PP isn't saying the article was miswritten, but it was mistitled. If you actually read it, you'll see she is right.

Generally the authors aren't the ones picking the titles.

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/40251/are-headlines-often-not-written-by-the-person-writing-a-newspaper-article

[Anonymous]

I think the title represents the content of the article. People can disagree. It’s ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the title represents the content of the article. People can disagree. It’s ok.

And you can be wrong. Sure.

[Anonymous]

The title is accurate. People are correct to refuse the so-called donation scam.

Now check out what they’re doing with the placenta after women give birth in a hospital.
Yep, selling it… without our knowledge.