Is Brain death an Actual Death (2) ?

It's week 5, and I spent most of this week working on my research project titled "Recovery from brain death", and I did some personal study on Mitral clip. 

 

What exactly is brain death? 

Brain Death fondly called brain stem death(BSD) is the loss in function of the brain stem – a lower part of the brain responsible for regulating basic functions such as breathing, and heartbeat. Patients with BSD are unconscious and they require a ventilator to aid their breathing. This concept was developed for cases where the patients have healthy functional organs but the brain is damaged beyond control. The organs can then be donated to save people in need of organ transplants. 


Although brain death diagnosis may differ across countries, some basic test needs to be carried out before declaring a patient brain dead. These tests include: 

  1. 1. Reaction to reflexes – Ability for them to react to outside stimulation 

  2. 2. Brain tests - such as Angiogram to confirm blood flow to the brain, EEG to verify any brain activity, PET scan, etc. 

  3. 3. Apnoea test – Removal of the breathing device to confirm if the patient can breathe without aid. 

  4. 4. Second opinion  

 

Combing literature, I saw several cases of brain death recovery. However, from the data put together, one major finding of my research was pointing to the fact that most of the people who declared BSD had none or only a part of the above tests conducted on them. Which leaves the question of "Were these patients truly brain dead or they were cases of misdiagnosis?" 

 

It gets even more interesting...  

 

Finally, I did some study on mitral clips. A Mitral clip is used to treat patients with mitral regurgitation, especially in patients that should not have open-heart surgery.  

 

I intend to continue working on my research project for more interesting facts, and I look forward to observing more surgeries in the clinic. 

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