Brain Death

I would not! I was told by a team of doctors that very thing..........they were wrong.

 

Doctors can keep a body breathing that wouldn't naturally breath; doctors can keep a heart beating that wouldn't naturally beat; doctors can keep keep the body from poisoning itself through dyalsis; and they can keep the blood circulating with various medicines.....
Doctors can't tell us when a soul leaves the body!

Medicine, all science for that matter, simply gives us probabilities for an evert happening.
God tells us the simple truth, death is inevitable and the cause is sin.

Rob

 

Hmmm. Tough topic. I'm an attending physician in Internal Medicine. I unfortunately do alot of ICU stuff and have had to deal with this ALOT.

There's a couple of posts I don't agree with. Brain death means that that brain is GONE. NO blood flow, no activity, no nothing. At this point the brain tissue actually begins to decompose. This is NOT the same as being a "vegetable". This refers to someone who has no "higher" brain functions but who does have some intact brainstem function - this is the part of the brain which controls breathing and heartbeat modulation. A person who is "brain dead" has NO chance of waking up (barring a miraculous intervention of course).

Usually what I tell family members is to not feel pressured or rushed - that they should all think and pray about what the person would have wanted. I'll say that (unfortunately) if the blood flow scan is negative and the exam is negative off of all sedating medicine for 24 hours that the person's chance of waking up is 0.0% unless there is a divine miracle. By broaching this before declaring brain death the family is a little better prepared to think about it.

The issue of continuing artificial feeding or support in a person who is vegetative but not "brain dead" is alot more difficult!

Charles M

 

Last fall we had a teenage girl at our church who was pronounced brain dead, no brain activity at all. It is not a coma, it is not a severe sickness. The brain has died, the body can not, will not function on it's own, the body is also dead at this point. It is being forced to breath , forced heart beating. They are already gone on, the body dead on a machine. No matter how long you wait they are never going to recover. They look alive because their breathing, but they are dead. A person has to ask how long they want their loved one to be forced to breath, forced heart beat when in fact they are dead. It has to be accepted as hard as it is and remove the machine and let their body have the rest their spirit now has.
Leslie's parents had the machines turned off and let her go, even though she had actually died 2 days earlier.

 

Hope I'm not getting to graphic.

Death is a process. Physically it doesn't occur all at once.

I remember (in less politically correct times) when I disected a frog in grade school. The "live" frog was pith'ed (we scrambled its brains with a sharp probe), at this point the frog was dead. Yet we could still examine the living parts, the beating heart, the twitching muscles, etc. Even after separating the limbs from a frog we could use electrical stimulation to provoke a muscular reaction.

In people, hair and nails will continue to grow even after a person is pronounced "dead" (by even the most critical standards).

The definition of death is like defining pornography; its not easily defined but you know it when you see it.

Rob

Rob

 

I'd be one of those nurses. While I can't tell you when the spirit leaves the body, I consider the ceccation of major bodily functions as a clear sign of death. It is still a sad time when a "brain dead" person is removed from ventillary support, there is a finality about that last breath, whether it was natural or provided by a machine.

Rob

 

While ministering to a family from our church whose 8 year old had fallen and suffered severe brain hemorrage a number of years ago we had to deal with this matter. The girl in the hospital looked like she was alive with pink and warm skin and just looked asleep. At that time in that state, brain death was defined as 24 hours without brain activity. When the decision to pull the plug was made by the family after the definative brain test the girl quit breathing. In my opinion she died a week earlier when the fall happened before she was placed on life support.

I am an EMT and sometimes we take a person to the hospital who is dead, but through defibrillation, CPR, a bag valve mask and heart stimulating drugs we can keep the body warm and the oxygenated blood circulating. When we arrive at the hospital code room the doctor may takes up to 30 minutes to try to recussitate the person. While I am willing to do all I can to save a life, most of these people were dead by the time we got to their side.

Praise the Lord, sometimes our efforts are rewarded with a life saved. Just yesterday one of our ambulance crews brought back a PNB (pulseless non-breather) and the man is still alive today.

 

I am of the belief that the brain houses the soul of the body. All the body is an instrument connected to the brain. Any part of the body can be transplanted and replaced including the heart and spinal cord (almost at least parts will soon be transplantable with new technologies). Never will medicine be able to sucessfully transplant a brain, and at least get the same person. The brain is the personality, thought, habit and actions of a person. When the brain suffers a defect, ie a growth pressing against it or a blood clot causing cease in function in an area, a person will change. When the brain shows no activity and no chance of activity then I truly believe that they person has passed to be with the Lord. I believe that you can keep a body functioning long after brain fucntionality ceases but you are only keeping an empty house, the occupant is with the Lord. The only reason we have such technology today is for people, friends & family who refuse to acknowledge the passing of their loved one. They use this technology to keep from having to confront pain. This is a crutch. I wish a law would be passed to force doctors to pull the plug as such a "crutch" is unhealthy in a dire way. The inability to let go creates dillusion and sets up "walls" of defensive behavior to many points of life. It also hinders grief which is a healthy release of pain.

 

The topic interested me enough to do some further research.
We should study what life is to know when it is gone.

Here’s a website that discusses, from a biblical perspective, what life is.

http://bible.lifewithchrist.org/permalink/361

Rob


From the site:
In the Old Testament, man is whole, but has two parts that form the self (nephesh):
1. Flesh
2. Spirit (Heb - ruach)
Both ruach and nephesh leave the body at death.
Nephesh is a breathing creature, and also means breath, and life, the vital principle which results in death when it leaves the body. Nephesh can die or stop, can be killed, and can be poured out with the blood. It correlates with the Greek psuche in the New Testament.
The inner person is nephesh. The outer person, reputation, or "name" is shem.
Though often translated as such, nephesh cannot mean "soul" in some cases. The source of human nephesh is God; the source of animal nephesh is the ground.

 

I have to admit that you are correct. The technology was originally created for the purpose of harvesting organs for potential candidates. It's just the use of that technology to keep bodies functional long after actual death that is wrong, not the technology itself.

 

I don't think I'm against it in brain death, but I also would not be against those who would refuse.
The definition of brain death unfortunately seems to vary, so there is no pat answer.
An interesting case was Terry Schiavo's. In her situation I personally would have preferred being starved to death for myself, while if it was my child I wouldn't put them through that in a million years. I don't think many people would in reality make that decision for themselves though, and if a person has not stated with full knowledge that this is something they would like done than there's no way on earth it should ever be attempted.
In cases where the person is dependant on machines for all bodily functions and death would be within minutes, I really don't have a problem with that. I may even go as far as to say that it's wrong to keep them hooked up on machine's, it's too unnatural and is a denial of the fact that we must die at some point in time. Life support was meant to support life, not to prolong the death process.
Gina