Synonyms
Definition
Establishing the point at which a person is considered to be dead.
Introduction
Medical progress has, somewhat paradoxically, evoked more complicated and pressing challenges as more life-sustaining technologies became available. Making determinations about death represents one such medical endeavor. In previous centuries, death was generally accepted as the complete and irreversible cessation of cardiovascular function. Over the past century, advances in the life-sustaining technology have lengthened the interval from an inciting terminal event to the point of complete cardiovascular collapse. Thus, the comparatively simple criteria of the past (e.g., protracted absence of a heart beat) have been rendered unreliable by mechanical and pharmacological support. Thus, updated criteria were required – criteria that remain somewhat controversial at the present. This entry summarizes the legal...
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Fortunato, J.T., Wasserman, J.A., Menkes, D.L. (2021). Medical Definitions of Death. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_542
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_542
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