Can a brain dead human being have moral status?
All persons with less than full moral status require a surrogate decision maker to determine their true interests. A brain-dead human being can have no moral status. The work of specifying and balancing norms of moral status generates guidelines for biomedical research and medical practice.
What are consequences of brain death?
Brain death induces considerable hemodynamic, hormonal, and metabolic changes, that if untreated, may result in cardiac arrest and somatic death. Early and aggressive hemodynamic management and hormonal support may delay and temporarily reverse these events of hemodynamic instability and metabolic derangements.
Is it ethical to keep a brain dead person alive?
In 1981, Abram, a member of the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, explained that it is inappropriate to continue life-sustaining treatment on a dead body.
What are the three cardinal findings associated with brain death?
The three essential findings in brain death are coma, absence of brain stem reflexes, and apnea. An evaluation for brain death should be considered in patients who have suffered a massive, irreversible brain injury of identifiable cause. A patient properly determined to be brain dead is legally and clinically dead.
Can the brain dead be harmed or wronged on the moral status of brain death and its implications for organ transplantation?
The majority of transplantable human organs are retrieved from patients declared dead by neurological criteria, or “brain-dead.” Since brain death is considered to be sufficient for death, the procurement of vital organs is not considered to harm or wrong such patients.
Is being brain dead a disability?
Like all states, California follows a version of the 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act, which says that someone who has sustained the “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” California law requires that hospitals permit “a reasonably brief period of …
What is somatic death?
Somatic death is characterized by the discontinuance of cardiac activity and respiration, and eventually leads to the death of all body cells from lack of oxygen, although for approximately six minutes after somatic death—a period referred to as clinical death—a person whose vital organs have not been damaged may be …
How should clinicians respond when patients loved ones do not see brain death as death?
If all testing confirms the brain death diagnosis, and if the family members remain adamant that they do not accept this as the definition of death and thus request ongoing mechanical support, then the next phase of care for the family begins. The family should continue to be listened to and shown compassion.
What is the difference between brain dead and coma?
Brain death: Irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. A person who is brain dead is dead, with no chance of revival. Coma: A state of profound unresponsiveness as a result of severe illness or brain injury.
Is the declaration of brain death an ethical dilemma?
The declaration of brain death and refusal by the family is therefore an ethical dilemma. This is from the fact that it brings forward the controversy between the two bioethical principles: autonomy and beneficence.
What are the consequences of delaying the pronouncement of brain death?
However, delaying pronouncement of brain death may be detrimental to the family and lead to financial, ethical, and legal complications, including the potential for insurance fraud.
What happens to nurses after a brain death?
The effect of a brain death and the family refusal scenario may be of great emotional impact of the nurses. Some might even end up losing it all, according the historical findings, but it always appropriate to note that these effects will differ from one nurse to another.
What is the history of brain death?
What radically changed this definition was the introduction of the concept “brain death” in 1968, by the “Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School”. According to it, the irreversible coma was associated with brain death and considered to be a criterion for the diagnosis of the deceased individual.