Abstract
There is no universal consensus regarding the diagnosis of brain death using standardized criteria (see the excellent review of this by Wijdicks, 2002). The most widely known are the original Harvard criteria from 1968. The lack of widely accepted criteria operationally means that physicians are subject to local guidelines in specific cases. Other sets of guidelines for determining brain death include the Ad Hoc Committee on Death of the Minnesota Medical Association (1976), the Conference of the Medical Royal Colleges (1976), the United States Collaborative Study of Cerebral Death (1977), and the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1981). Differences among their criteria include (1) the regions of brain that must lose all function, (2) the extent and characteristics of areflexia, (3) the duration of the clinical observation, and (4) the role and category of confirmatory tests.
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(2006). Disorders of Consciousness and Brain Death. In: Lerner, A.J. (eds) Diagnostic Criteria in Neurology. Current Clinical Neurology. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-078-2_5
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