Brain Death....

[EMSpassion94]

What exactly happens when someone becomes brain dead? Is hypoxia always the cause?

 

[JJR512]

Burial or cremation, usually.

 

[Cup of Joe]

Burial or cremation, usually.

What about frozen...I want to be frozen so I can be brought back to life when they come up with the technology! :rofl:

To answer the OP's question: The brain dies when if doesn't get enough oxygen yes, that could be a simple answer. But in a little longer answer, the brain dies when it doesn't get enough of anything that is carried in the blood, oxygen being one of those things. Glucose being another.

 

[firetender]

Simple definition: Someone or some ones decide that the lights are on, but no one is home; the body functions on auto-pilot and there is no appearance of any sort of intelligence or brain function. This can be "documented by many different means such as EEG's, MRI's, CAT scans and the like, but you know what?

People who have been diagnosed and remanded away as "brain dead" sometimes snap back, and even after many years!

So we have ideas, but really DON'T understand the process.

I worked in Rehab for a while and witnessed a number of diagnosed brain deaths, one of whom was (literally!) brought back by the efforts of an Occupational Therapist who, against all of the expert medical opinions, saw the light and helped it weasel its way out again!

So this is a very broad subject, with no easy explanation.

Now if you really want to get an idea of what brain death might look like from the INSIDE, check out Dalton Trumbo's book Johnny Got His Gun which traces the inner experience of a WWI soldier given up for brain dead but he wasn't!

 

[usafmedic45]

Although most people who are diagnosed as being brain dead are, as a point of fact, brain dead. The technical term is "Schiavo-esque".

 

[ArcticKat]

The brain survives on two primary ingredients. Oxygen and Sugar. A deprivation of either can result in brain damage significant enough to cause a coma and brain death.

There may be others, but these are the only two I can think of at the moment.

 

[lightsandsirens5]

The brain survives on two primary ingredients. Oxygen and Sugar. A deprivation of either can result in brain damage significant enough to cause a coma and brain death.

There may be others, but these are the only two I can think of at the moment.

You forgot NCAA football. Lol! And Cold Stone Cheesecake ice cream with strawberries. (Or does that count as sugar?)

Anyhow, so far as I know you are correct. O2 and sugar are the two main ingredients in the brains fuel mixture. (For lack of better words on my part.)

 

[bstone]

The brain survives on beer and chips. If either of those are disturbed then it may lead to brain death. This is why my ALS service is begun to carry IV beer and chips pills.

 

[Ramathorn90]

And that is why my service fails! We dont carry any of that.

Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G using Tapatalk

 

[mycrofft]

Clinically and diagnostically speaking

Diagnostically, brain death is established by absence of electrical activity in the brain. Clinically, signs and symptoms include loss of consciousness, absence of vital signs, absence of all (including cranial) reflexes, pupils fixed and dilated bilaterally, in the absence of reversible pharmaceuticals presenting such s/s. They can be "in the prsence of" after a short while, because their s/s will actually cause death, but there can be a point at which their effects are reversible, to some extent, before anoxia and hypoglycemia kill you.

Insults include CNS disease (think cystircircoma, AIDS, prion diseases like "kuru"), anoxia, hypoglycemia, CO2 intoxication, metabolic waste intoxication, exogenous poisons, energetic physical trauma (mashee niblick syndrome), slow physical trauma (compression by neoplasm or haematoma), or anything which basically kills the brain. (duh-OH). Oh, and insanely massive hard ionizing radiation a'la Chernobyl.

Some toxins can clinically mimic brain death. If I smacked you with sux and belladonna eyedrops you would appear dead, and likely would become dead soon if unresuscitated. Presumably other neurotoxics can cause clinical signs of death. Hypoxic states can mimic death. The fascination with these states is in the small percentage who are not quite there and resuscitative efforts prolong organic survival except for most of or all of the brain.

EEG is the gold standard, but most cases with clinical s/s despite prolonged resuscitation are dead.

Well, mostly........