Death is a state of the body in which the vital organs have ceased their activity. As a result, irreversible destruction processes take place at the intracellular level. There are different types of death, stages, characteristics and methods of diagnosis. Let's take a closer look at them.
General information
Death, the concept, types of this state have been considered by people since ancient times. The mystery of the termination of life has always frightened society and forced it to somehow justify this phenomenon. In ancient times, this was facilitated by religion. Today, a person treats the fact of death more pragmatically. Currently, the phenomenon is being studied by science, primarily in order to gain knowledge about life extension. In the study of irreversible changes occurring both during and after death, scientists are trying to identify the reasons why they occur. The main goal is to identify ways to slow down processes that shorten life.
Types of biological death
The natural cessation of life is caused, for example, by the onset of a certain (advanced) age. In this case, it is assumed that death occurred by itself, that is, non-violently. Meanwhile, the termination of life can be caused by the action of external factors. For example, an encroachment on the part of another subject. In this case, the study of the circumstances of the death of a person is carried out by criminologists.
Types of violent death are classified according to certain criteria. First of all, the external characteristics of the body are distinguished. Types, signs of death in this case are of practical importance in the investigation of crimes. For example, the death of the subject can come from a blow with a blunt object, a shot from a firearm, beatings inflicted with extreme cruelty. Types of infliction of death directly affect the amount of punishment for the perpetrator.
Stages
At the biological level, death occurs in three stages:
- At the first stage, due to various hidden or noticeable factors, the inhibition of the functions of the organs responsible for blood circulation and respiration begins. The performance of these systems, however, does not stop. It simply isn't enough to meet the body's oxygen needs.
- Self-regulation begins at the second stage. In the course of it, internal processes are activated, which compensate for the oppression of the functioning of organs. In this state, muscle tissue begins to contract. This leads to increased breathing. The last internal resources of the body are activated.
- At the last stage, clinical death occurs. In this state, the heart and breathing stop. Clinical death can last from 2 minutes to half an hour. Everything will depend on external and other factors. During this period, the last oxygen reserves are spent on oxidative reactions inside the cells. After that, the nervous tissue begins to break down.
Terminal states
Any kind of human death occurs after certain stages. Together, they can last from a few minutes/hours to several days. The terminal states are the preagonal stage, agony and, in fact, clinical death. The latter is present in any case, regardless of the rate of termination of the functioning of the vital functions of the body. In this state, there is a chance to prevent death. For this, resuscitation measures are provided. If they were not carried out or were ineffective, the life of the organism stops.
Views, signs of death: pre-agonal state
It is accompanied by a violation of the central nervous system, a decrease in pressure, centralization of blood circulation. The patient has difficulty breathing. It becomes irregular, shallow, perhaps more frequent. Due to lack of ventilation in the lungs, there is a lack of oxygen in the tissues. At the same time, oxidative reactions remain as the main metabolic process. The duration of the preagonal state varies. It may be completely absent. This occurs, for example, with severe mechanical damage to the heart. Predagonal state can lastlong enough. For example, if the body can somehow compensate for the attenuation of vital functions.
Agony
It is an attempt by the body to use the last resources with the oppressed functions of vital systems. At the beginning of this stage, the pressure rises, the heart rhythm begins to recover, and active respiratory movements are carried out. Meanwhile, the lungs are practically not ventilated. At the same time, the contraction of the respiratory muscles responsible for exhalation and inhalation begins. Consciousness can be restored for a short time. Due to oxygen deficiency in the tissues, products that have not undergone oxidation begin to accumulate rapidly. Metabolic processes proceed according to the anaerobic scheme.
In a state of agony, due to the burning of ATP in the tissues, a person loses a strand of 50-80 g of his mass. They are also called "the weight of the soul." As a rule, the agony does not last long - no more than 5-6 minutes. In rare cases, it can last half an hour. After that, pressure begins to decrease, contractions of the heart muscle stop, breathing stops.
Last stage
Duration of clinical death - from the moment of cessation of the activity of the heart, central nervous system and respiration to the start of irreversible changes in the brain. Anaerobic metabolism continues at the expense of the reserves accumulated in the cells. As soon as these resources run out, the nervous tissue dies. In the absolute absence of oxygen, the necrosis of cells in the cerebral cortex and cerebellum begins after 2-2.5 minutes. These departments are most sensitive to deficiencyO2. After the death of the cortex, the restoration of life-supporting functions is impossible. The result is biological death.
Features
With effective resuscitation measures, the duration of clinical death is usually taken as the time that has elapsed from cardiac arrest to the beginning of the body's return to life. Modern methods, such as maintaining blood pressure at the minimum required level, blood purification, mechanical ventilation, transfusion or donor blood circulation, allow maintaining life in the nervous tissue for a sufficiently long period.
Under normal conditions, clinical death lasts no more than 5-6 minutes. Its duration is influenced by many factors. In particular, this is the cause, type of death, body temperature, level of arousal of the body, age, conditions in which the subject was, and so on. In some cases, this stage can last up to 30 minutes. For example, this is allowed by such types of human death as drowning in cold water, severe frostbite. In these situations, due to the reduced temperature, metabolic processes, including those in the brain, slow down significantly. With the help of artificial prophylactic hypothermia, the duration of the stage can be increased up to 2 hours.
At the same time, under the influence of certain circumstances, some types of clinical death are distinguished by a reduced duration. For example, this happens if death occurs from a large blood loss. In this situation, pathological changes in the nervous tissue, due to which the restoration of life is impossible, develop to a stop.hearts.
Specific classification
Despite the fact that the problem of the termination of life remains unsolved to the end, in medicine for a long time the types of death are differentiated according to a number of criteria. First of all, there are categories. There are two of them - violent and non-violent death. Genus is the second criterion. According to it, the following types of non-violent death are distinguished:
- Physiological.
- Pathological
- Suddenly.
There is a classification by gender and for the termination of life due to external factors. So, there are such types of violent death as:
- Murder.
- Suicide.
- Accidental death.
Additional category
Above, 2 types of death were described. The classification into two categories was adopted a long time ago and existed for quite a long time. Modern medicine distinguishes 3 types of death. Currently, brain death is considered as a separate condition. It should be said that this category is also not fully understood, like other types of clinical death.
Diagnosis
One of the most difficult stages of classification is the stage of identifying the cause of death. It can be primary, intermediate and immediate. Scientists, fearing to make a mistake in diagnosing, created special life samples or formed special burial conditions. For example, in Munichcentury there was a tomb, where the hand of the deceased was wrapped with a cord from the bell. It rang only once. As it turned out, this happened due to the resolution of rigor mortis. Meanwhile, in practice, more than one case is known when the living were delivered to the morgue, to whom doctors mistakenly diagnosed types of easy death.
Checking respiratory function
Types of death are ascertained according to a set of criteria. One of them is checking the function of the respiratory system. To date, there are no reliable signs of its safety. Depending on external conditions, doctors use a fluff, a cold mirror, and auscultate breathing. The Winslow test is also used. It consists in the fact that a vessel with water is placed on the chest of a person. According to the fluctuation of its level, respiratory movements are judged. At the same time, a gust of wind, high humidity in the room, passing vehicles, elevated temperatures can affect the results of any of the studies. Accordingly, the conclusions will be incorrect.
Safety of the function of the cardiac system
Diagnosing types of death, doctors conduct auscultation of the heart, palpation of the pulse of peripheral and central vessels, as well as cardiac impulse. However, these studies cannot be considered completely reliable. Evidence and quite interesting even in the presence of minimal blood circulation is the Magnus test. It consists in a tight constriction of the finger. In the presence of blood circulation, blanching of the cover will be noted, a cyanotic hue will appear on the periphery. Whenthe constriction will be removed, the skin color will be restored.
Safety of the central nervous system
This indicator is the most important for doctors diagnosing certain types of death. At the scene of the incident, it is fundamentally impossible to state the death of the brain. The safety of the activity of the central nervous system is checked by the absence or presence of consciousness, relaxation of the muscles, the passive position of the body, the reaction to an external stimulus (ammonia or minor pain effects). An informative sign is the corneal reflex. It shows the presence / absence of pupil reaction to light.
