• Question: at what moment are you dead?

    Asked by elise_webster18 to David, Eva, Kate, Nicholas, Rachel on 9 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Hey Elise,

      It’s a tough question, but I’ll try and give you a basic answer. Most doctors will say that when they can no longer measure activity using an EEG (a device that measures electricity in the brain), that person is dead. A few cells elsewhere in the body might still be alive and working, but once the brain is gone, not a lot can be done 🙁

    • Photo: Rachel McMullan

      Rachel McMullan answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      I think death used to be defined as when your respiration, circulation and brain activity all stopped and couldn’t be restarted but now there are machines that can provide artificial respiration and circulation so the definition has changed a bit.

    • Photo: David Nunan

      David Nunan answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      Hi Elise,

      Doctors used to consider it as when your heart no longer has any electrical impulses or signals running through it and stops beating in a regular rhythm. You’ve probably seen it in Holby or other medical programmes – it’s when the ECG looks like a flat line (this is called cardiac arrest). It would also include when you stop breathing by yourself and means that your brain stops getting oxygen and stops working.

      However, now we have CPR we can keep the brain alive for longer. So now clinical death is defined as no heartbeat + no breathing + no brain activity. But it still doesn’t mean dead. Only when a doctor or medic stops CPR and biological death occurs can a person be declared legal dead.

Comments