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Brain Death

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Neurointensive Care

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Abstract

Brain death is a concept of death based on neurological criteria. Although widely accepted, not all countries have protocols to diagnose brain death in order to pronounce a person legally dead or to accommodate organ donation. Between countries there are differences in the methods of determining brain death and in the social acceptance of brain death equaling death. This chapter discusses problems of diagnosing brain death as well as ethical and moral problems in relation to brain death.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? Edgar Allan Poe, 1844 (in: The Premature Burial)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intensive Care Department, Medical Center Leeuwarden, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

    Michael A. Kuiper MD, PhD

  2. Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Gea Drost MD, PhD

  3. Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

    J. Gert van Dijk MD, PhD

Authors
  1. Michael A. Kuiper MD, PhD
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  2. Gea Drost MD, PhD
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  3. J. Gert van Dijk MD, PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael A. Kuiper MD, PhD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Neurological Intensive Care Unit, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany

    Katja E. Wartenberg

  2. Department of Critical Care, Medinah National Hospital, Medinah Munnawarah, Saudi Arabia

    Khalid Shukri

  3. Department of Neurology, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield, Illinois, USA

    Tamer Abdelhak

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Kuiper, M.A., Drost, G., van Dijk, J.G. (2015). Brain Death. In: Wartenberg, K., Shukri, K., Abdelhak, T. (eds) Neurointensive Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17293-4_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17293-4_20

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-17292-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-17293-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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