Types of Life and Death: Organ Donation = Life Donation

Types of Life:

1- Normal life: Life is for all healthy and sick people who have motor, mental and cognitive (perceptual) function.

2- Life in a coma: : Coma is a state of unconsciousness in which a person does not regain consciousness with the most painful physical stimuli and remains stable for a while. A coma is not a disease, but a sign of an illness or a reaction to an accident that has happened to a person's body; like a severe blow to the head that causes nervous shock and coma. .most of the coma that is caused by this is not longer than 4 weeks, and the patient returns to normal life, but some of those who go into a coma go to life after a while. 

3- Vegetative state: vegetative state almost always occurs following a coma.  It refers to patients who, following severe brain damage (not brain death), may survive for many years and appear conscious, without being able to communicate with their surroundings.  If, for example, only the blood supply to the cerebral cortex is disturbed, all the patient's senses and movements are lost, but the breathing and other things mentioned that originate from the brainstem remain.  In this case, we are dealing with a disease that has spontaneous breathing but no movement or perception.  Although a person seems awake (eyes open) and has a series of involuntary movements of his limbs, he has no mental or cognitive function.  In plant life, the patient does not need artificial respiration and may remain in this state for years and then return to life or die.

4. Life in locked state:  in a patient, only the blood supply of the brainstem is disrupted and the cerebral cortex remains intact, naturally we are faced with a disease that lacks any movement (except for a number of eye movements whose fibers move from outside the brainstem towards the cerebral cortex) and do not have breathing, but have full comprehensible power. This is a case that refers to a locked human condition and is the most dismal state, a disease that lacks any movement, does not have breathing, but understands all the events around it and with eye movements, can answer questions yes or no. Due to their inability to breathe, these patients should have a ventilator and may remain that way for years. The above patients rarely return and generally die due to infectious complications.

Types of death:

1- Cardiac death: Complete and irreversible devotion is a vital act, and usually the heart first fails, followed by the death of brain cells, resulting in loss of breathing, sensation, and movement.

2- Brain death: Brain death is the irreversible cessation of all brain activity of the cerebral cortex, the subcortical layer and the brainstem completely. Brain death is the irreversible cessation of all brain activity in the cerebral cortex, subcortical layer, and brainstem. It is the ability to completely control the body's brain-related respiration, so after brain death, the heart can maintain its pulse for a short time.  But without a ventilator, this pulse will stop quickly and in less than an hour (a few minutes).  Therefore, if relief is not arrived in time and artificial respiration is delivered, brain death will lead to heart death (definitive death).  However, if timely relief and artificial respiration are achieved using the equipment, it is possible to continue the heartbeat for a limited time (several days).  Also, with the use of artificial respiration, some other biological processes in the body, such as the activity of the kidneys and stomach, continue for about a week.  Without the brain, the body cannot secrete the necessary hormones to maintain the activity of biological processes, and thus the body of a person with brain death will usually not be able to survive for long.  On the other hand, the destruction of organs in the body is accompanied by the production of toxins, and the dead brain also secretes toxins that are transferred to the heart and other organs over time and disable them.  If we want to donate the organs of a person who has suffered brain death for transplantation, we have to decide within three to four days because the heart survives only a few days after brain death and after this time it disappears and will not be able to transplant.  Therefore, the organs of the body have a golden time to survive at the time of brain death, which disappears spontaneously after this time.  If the person has transplantable organs, the person does not have a specific disease and his organs are healthy, it is possible to transplant them after 3 to 4 days.

Unfortunately, the families of many brain dead people do not agree to a transplant because they do not know the difference between brain death and vegetative state and coma in the hope that the brain dead patient will return, while the probability of a brain dead patient returning is scientifically zero.

Persian page link :https://ehda-zendeghi.blogsky.com

Thank you for trying to save a human life

Translator : Javad Eynaki Maleki