When a person is seriously damaged, their brain can be dead while their body is still alive.
A new set of guidelines has been created to help doctors determine when someone is brain dead, which means their brain has completely stopped working due to a severe injury.
The new rules were published in the medical journal Neurology.
More about the guidance
Before this, there were separate guidelines for adults and children, but now there is one set of rules that apply to both.
Brain death is a very serious condition, and it's different from being in a coma or a vegetative state.
When someone is brain dead, it means their brain is not working at all, and they can't recover.
Legally, brain death is considered the same as regular death.
The guidelines describe the steps doctors should follow to check if someone is brain dead.
They look at things like whether the person can breathe on their own and if there are any signs of brain activity.
If there's a catastrophic brain injury, no chance of recovery, and no brain or brainstem function, and the person can't breathe by themselves, then the doctors declare brain death.
Why it might be useful
These guidelines provide a standardized way for trained doctors to determine brain death, and they cover things like the steps doctors should follow, the tests they should do, and who can perform the tests.
These guidelines are important for making sure that brain death is determined correctly and consistently.
