can someone recover from lack of oxygen due to cardiac arrest who has what's called suppressed brain wave?
485940
it is possible but there would be damage.
552187
Yes, it has happened in cases where nothing would show on any equipment and the heart had stopped. It is possible to be legally dead and brought back to life, but only in certain circumstances. Consider drowning. You can be legally dead from drowning, your heart stopped, but an electric charge will bring you back if done within a certain amount of time. There are alot of stories on this under 'near death experiences'. Look em up. Crazy stuff.
1057133
A person can be declared dead in an emergency room when they are in cardiac arrest and cannot be resuscitated, or if they've been asystolic for more than six minutes and revival would likely result in a vegetative state.\n\nDeath can also be declared by other emergency personnel when specific requirements are met. Levidity, rigor mortis, decapitations, etc.
1160186
In spite of having nearly died on several occasions, I still can't say that I can honestly answer this question to you or to myself.\n\nIn a couple of cases, my transition from conscious to unconscious and near death was so swift that I had no time for "conscious" fear, although what I experienced between "slipping away" and being resuscitated was at the least interesting and at the worst extremely distressing.\n\nWhen I drowned, I had some of what we loosely call near death experiences.  I became calm, unaware of any bodily sensation, and the last thing I saw with my eyes was the water around me, which seemed peaceful.  Then I was somewhere else, witnessing scenes from my early childhood (I was eleven at the time). Then there was a scene where I was a child playing in our back yard, and my mother came to the back door, called my name and told me to come back, that it was not time for me to go. This scene was followed by a state of complete terror, and a confused kind of semiconsciouness -- best I can describe it.  That was the point that where my rescuers reached me.  What followed after that was best described as total pandemonium, and I was told later that at that point I was fighting the rescuers and almost pulled one down with me.  He told me that he was so exhausted that he feared for his life.  He had sprint-swimmed over 100 meters to reach me, and when I struggled it sapped his remaing energy.  Fortunately, there were two who came to my aid, and the second was able to help restrain me. They got me to shore, and I had coughed out a lot of water and was breathing again.  All three of us were unable to stand for several minutes -- our knees were like rubber.  The one who I nearly took down with me, he is my brother.  We never spoke of this to our parents or anyone, and for years never spoke of it ourselves.  \n\nMore recently, I was hospitalized for a severe pulmonary illness.  I stopped breathing twice in the ER.  Both events were horrible experiences.   I convulsed and felt like every fiber of my being was being ripped apart.  During one of the events, I felt that I was literally torn from my body and pulled upwards by an invisible force.  All the while I was fighting (in my mind) to exert all my will to force myself not to die, to start breathing again.  I had no other thoughts except one -- this is really going to suck if I die like this, right now.\n\nI'm still here, and I hope I stick around awhile.  I am more aware of my mortality than I'd reckon any average person may be, but I still cannot honestly say if I "fear" death or not.  All I can say is I now accept its inevitability, and in that sense, I no longer dread it.  So, maybe I don't fear it. \n\nWhat I do fear is leaving life before I feel ready.  I'm still relatively young, and feel I have things to be done ere I go.
455496
interesting question. I'm not sure I think it would depend on how you die. If it was something that would affect your brain like spine injury or stroke probly not but maybe if you have a heart attack your brain can still process for a few seconds while it still has blood that your heart stopped and you are dying. I do know that the brain can still work when cut off from the body (for a few seconds.) When they decapitated people they told them to blink until they couldn't anymore and the people would blink for almost 30 seconds after the head was cut off until they bleed to death. Kinda scary...
599928
On two separate occasions, my heart and breathing stopped and I was essentially dead until resuscitated with CPR.\n\nI did not see any afterlife.
299477
Cardio- (heart) Pulmonary (breathing) Resuscitation
458027
without a pacemaker, such as an intermittent, the heart will continue to go into constant dysrythmia or atrial, ventricular, or sinus fibrillation. this makes it to where the hearts effectiveness(cardiac output) is decreased to nearly if not full asystole(without constriction) and blood will not flow through the body providing oxygen to all the tissues, including "the brain" and you will die due to ischemia- lack of oxygen. the pacemaker "paces" the heart keeping it under control like a kid on Ritalin
1125561
Yes. For example when performing CPR there's the Dr ABC steps. The breathing is checked before the circulation is. Once the breathing step has been fixed you move on to the circulation. If it wasn't possible to breathe without circulation you'd have to do it the other way around, i.e. fix the circulation before you can move onto the breathing.
553486
See you DR.\n\nWhat conditions cause temporary loss of consciousness?\n\nTemporary loss of consciousness can be caused by heart conditions and conditions that do not directly involve the heart.\n\nTemporary loss of consciousness is more commonly caused by conditions that do not directly involve the heart. These conditions include those caused by: 1) a shift in body position from lying or sitting to a more vertical position (postural hypotension); 2) dehydration; 3) blood pressure medications; 4) diseases of the nerves to the legs of the elderly; 5) diabetes; or 6) Parkinson's disease. A decreased total blood volume and/or poor tone of the nerves of the legs from these conditions causes a disproportionate distribution of the blood in the legs, instead of up to the brain, when standing.\n\nOther common non-heart causes of temporary loss of consciousness include fainting after blood is drawn or after certain situational events (situational syncope), such as after urination, defecating, or coughing. This occurs because of a reflex of the involuntary nervous system (vasovagal reaction) that leads to slowing of the heart rate and dilation of the blood vessels in the legs, thus lowering the blood pressure. The result is that less blood (therefore less oxygen) reaches the brain as it is directed to the legs. With situational syncope, patients often note nausea, sweating, or weakness just before the loss of consciousness occurs.\n\nThe vasovagal reaction is also called a vasovagal attack. And situational syncope is also called vasovagal syncope, vasodepressor syncope, and Gower syndrome after Sir William Richard Gower (1845- 1915), a famous English neurologist.\n\nBrain stroke or "near-stroke" (transient ischemic attack) and migraines can also lead to temporary loss of consciousness.\n\nHeart conditions that can cause temporary loss of consciousness include abnormal heart rhythms (heart beating too fast or too slow), abnormalities of the heart valves (aortic or pulmonic valve stenosis), elevated blood pressure in the arteries supplying blood to the lungs (pulmonary artery hypertension), tears in the aorta (aortic dissection), and widespread disease of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy).
1131889
You mean "Transient Ischemic Attacks".  These are sometimes called "mini-strokes" by some people.  They are short lasting episodes where small parts of the brain do not receive enough oxygen.  I will find a good article for you and re-post it.\n\nHere we go - you can learn more here:\nhttp://www.healthcomm.com/resources/imc/OneMedicineCons/ConsConditions/StrokeTransientcc.html
143951
Just a small addition to the answer above: permanent brain damage occurs minutes after the heart stops, but  a  person becomes unconscious long before that (in the matter of seconds).
128468
I believe that brain activity is the definition of death. Even if the heart and lungs have shut down, as long as there is brain activity, the doctors don't consider them dead and will work to revive them. However, if there is no brain activity, they won't.
401951
A coma is a deep state of unconsciousness, during which an individual is not able to react to their environment. Someone in a coma cannot respond to any form of stimulation whatsoever. Coma can be caused by an underlying illness, or it can result from head trauma. A comatose person is still very much alive, but he or she is not simply asleep. The brain wave activity in a comatose person is very different from that of a sleeping person; you can wake up a sleeping person, you can't wake a person in a coma. A coma usually does not last for more than a few weeks. Many people recover their full physical and mental functioning when they emerge from a coma. Others require various forms of therapy to recover as much functioning as possible. Some patients never recover anything but very basic body functions.\n\nSometimes, following a coma, a person may enter what is known as a persistent vegetative state; patients in persistent vegetative state have lost all cognitive neurological function but are still able to breathe and may exhibit various spontaneous movements. They may even be awake and appear to be normal but, because the cognitive part of their brain no longer functions, they are not able to respond to their environment. A vegetative state can last for years.\n\nThere are various other terms, in addition to coma and vegetative state, that are used to describe varying levels of unconsciousness and a person's ability to respond to stimuli. These include stupor, in which a person is unconscious but will eventually respond to repeated, vigorous stimulation; and obtundation and lethargy, which are used to describe a person who is not entirely unconscious but does not respond to stimuli.\n\nUsually, coma and other altered states of unconsciousness are considered neurological emergencies, and actions need to be taken quickly to avoid permanent damage.\n\nThe Human Brain\nThe human brain is made up of three basic parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brainstem. The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain and makes up about 85% of the brain's total weight. It's divided into two hemispheres, the cerebral hemispheres, one on each side of the head. The cerebrum is where all of the body's most complicated mental and sensory functions are controlled - intelligence, reasoning, memory, emotions, vision, our ability to feel things, etc. The cerebellum is a smaller part of the brain that lies behind the cerebrum. It plays an essential role in coordination, posture and balance. The brainstem is the stemlike part of the brain that connects the cerebral hemispheres to the spinal cord and is responsible for controlling many basic bodily functions, such as breathing, blood pressure, and being awake and alert.\n\nUnconsciousness\nAs with most mental processes that occur in the brain, the biology of consciousness - also called arousal - is very complicated and not well understood. There are many tissues located deep within the brain that play a role in how conscious and alert a person is. Researchers believe that one of the important physiological processes that keeps a person conscious is the transfer, or neurotransmission, of chemical signals from the brainstem to the cerebral hemispheres of the brain. This continuous neurotransmission needs to be happening in order for a person to be aware of their environment. Abnormalities that interrupt it can lead to coma or other states of unconsciousness.\n\nAbnormalities that can cause coma include injury or damage to the brain that leads to swelling (edema) in the brain, which results in an increased intracranial pressure (pressure within the skull). Increased pressure, whether it is localized in one particular spot or spread over the whole brain, decreases the flow of blood and can lead to unconsciousness. Injury or damage to the brain can also cause some areas of the brain to shift within the skull and exert pressure on surrounding tissues and structures, including blood vessels
405351
Fight and Flight: Cardiac arrest resuscitation.
1153210
Depends on the cause of the shock.  Hypovolemic shock requires head down O2 support and fluid volume replacement. Monitor vitals and give vasopressors to maintain BP and cardiac output\nNeurogenic shock is caused by a noxious stimulus, usually below the level of the bellybutton. Causes include a kinked catheter, inability to void and fecal impaction and can lead to seizures and a condition in paraplegics called autonomic dysreflexia.  Treatment usually begins with removing the noxious stimulus and supportive care.  If dysreflexia develops (cardinal sign is bradycardia and hypotension- the only time you will see these two together unless under the influence of drug therapy) treat the symptoms, usually resolves with removal of the stimulus\nThe list goes on  and on.... try a good medical surgical book
1139024
Definitely see a doctor about this. Brain damage can occur if she suffered head trauma. Fainting is caused by lack of oxygen to the brain due to poor circulation or a number of other sources. If it's for a short period of time, there shouldn't be too many long term problems, but if it's for 4-5minutes or more, large amounts of brain cells can die. I repeat, go see a doctor about this.