New Guidance Issued on the Determination of Brain Death
Research
New Guidance Issued on the Determination of Brain Death
New guidance has been issued for clinicians on the determination of brain death—also known as death by neurologic criteria—in the form of a consensus practice guideline, developed through a collaboration between the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Child Neurology Society (CNS), and the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and published in the journal Neurology.
This guideline updates the 2010 AAN adult practice guidelines and the 2011 AAP/CNS/SCCM pediatric practice guidelines on the determination of brain death. Until now, there have been two separate guidelines for determining brain death, one for adults and one for children. This update integrates guidance for adults and children into a single guideline, providing clinicians with a comprehensive and practical way to evaluate someone who has sustained a catastrophic brain injury to determine if they meet the criteria for brain death.
“Brain death means that clinicians cannot observe or elicit any clinical signs of brain function,” said author David M. Greer, MD, FAAN, FCCM, professor and chair of neurology. “Brain death is different from comatose and vegetative states. People do not recover from brain death. Brain death is legal death.”
The consensus practice guideline outlines the standardized procedure for trained clinicians to evaluate people for brain death. As part of this procedure, clinicians perform an evaluation to determine whether there is any clinical functioning of the brain and brainstem, including whether the person breathes on their own. Brain death is declared if a person has a catastrophic brain injury, has no possibility of recovering any brain function, is completely unresponsive, does not demonstrate any brain or brainstem function, and does not breathe on their own. The guideline includes updates on the prerequisites for brain death determination, the examination and the examiners, apnea testing, and ancillary testing.