Discussion
Read the Passage provided below and explain do you agree or disagree, or can you relate to his or her opinion in the post? Add any thoughts or additional information that you may have found concerning their topic?
Passage:
When you ask someone how they know that a person is dead you will receive many different answers as people have different opinions on when a person is dead. Everyone has different beliefs as well as many cultures believing many different ways. I believe that when a person no longer has brain function, they are no longer living. Leming and Dickinson say that “total irreversible loss of all brain function is death” (Leming and Dickinson 2020, p. 40). Since the 1960s through the 2000’s the definition of death has changed many times. Back in the 1960s when you would ask how to know when a person was dead, they would tell you that if a person’s heart stopped and they quit breathing they were dead. I know that many of us know people who have had their hearts stop and even quit breathing and they ended up surviving and going on to live their lives. As we approached the 1900s and even the 2000’s the terminology changed to be that if a person had a total loss of brain function that they were indeed dead. Is the brain the organ that tells our heart to beat, the respiratory system to have our breath, as well as our nervous system to work? If we do not have complete brain function one or more of these systems will not work and we will be dependent on technology and machines to keep us alive. So, in my opinion, if a person were to lose complete function of their brain, they are no longer with us and would be considered deceased. Your brain also controls your emotions, memory, and motor skills. If your brain is not able to tell you when to breathe and your heart when to beat then you will not be able to go on living. Yes, many will say that if your heart is not pumping it is not circulating blood back to your heart and to your brain and this would mean that you are dead. I would have to agree that you need your heart to beat in order to live, but if it was not for your brain telling your heart to beat then you would be dead. People who lose complete brain function will not regain the capacity and be able to regain consciousness thus they will never wake up again (Leming & Dickinson, 2020, p. 44). There are people that lose partial brain function like not being able to walk or communicate to where we can understand them, they may not be able to drink or eat, and may require feeding tubes and even long-term ivs. This is when parts of the brain function but not the whole brain. If someone is in a vegetative state, they will not be able to verbalize what they want to say so they will use methods like gesturing or even blinking to show you that they hear you or even to answer a question (Pietrangelo, 2019). As the family, you may feel like you never have that loved one back as they were before they lost partial brain function so you may feel as if they passed away that day.
