What is the difference between biologically dead and clinically dead

Death is not like falling asleep. It is something very different. If you are not sure about death, you should ask questions about it. A person who has been missing for a sufficiently long period of time typically at least several years may be presumed or declared legally dead, usually by a court.

When a death has been registered in a civil registry, a death certificate may be issued. But doctors say there is no life when brain activity ceases. Clinical Death Breathing and consciousness will cease within a few seconds of the heart stopping. Clinical death is reversible. In May , Thomas went into cardiac arrest at her home. Medics were able to establish a faint pulse after eight minutes of CPR. The 40 days is an opportunity for judgment before God. This research, published recently in Scientific Reports, is the first to investigate hearing in humans when they are close to death.

After death the blood generally clots slowly and remains clotted for several days. In some cases, however, fibrin and fibrinogen disappears from blood in a comparatively short time and the blood is found to be fluid and incoagulable soon after death. After someone has died, changes will happen to the body.

The body may release stool from the rectum, urine from the bladder, or saliva from the mouth. Bone, tendon, and skin can survive as long as 8 to 12 hours.

The brain, however, appears to accumulate ischemic injury faster than any other organ. Without special treatment after circulation is restarted, full recovery of the brain after more than 3 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is rare. Death is not like falling asleep. It is something very different. Only when a physician calls off the efforts and throws in the towel can brain or biological death, eventually followed by legal death, be declared.

In the U. More from Smithsonian. Photo: Kodak Afga. Sometimes, the line between life and death can seem blurred. In one recent case, a woman was erroneously declared dead after having a heart attack and wound up freezing to death in a body bag in the morgue. Another woman gave birth to a baby three months after she technically died.

Then, there was a case of a skier who became submerged under freezing water for hours, but was revived and suffered no brain damage. These and other cases reveal how hard it can be to distinguish the living from the dead.

With the advent of mechanical ventilators, the clear-cut definition of death has now given way to other, more clinical definitions. But these terms, such as "brain death" and "circulatory death," can create ambiguity about who is dead and who isn't, experts say. Despite its frequent use, the term "clinical death" doesn't actually have a consistent meaning, said Dr.