If you have a stroke or stop breathing does it keep beating even if the rest of you is gone?
My mother died, aged 92 and with a pacemaker. I’ll tell the story with dark humour because that’s what she enjoyed, and I know she’d appreciate it.
So, mum was in hospital: she could no longer swallow and was obviously on her way out. I refused to get her intubated to keep her alive; she hated the idea and I wanted to let her go with some dignity. I sat with her all day and watched as she slipped away because, unlike with our pets who can be “put to sleep” with a simple injection, one is forced to watch a loved one die slowly and painfully over hours or even days. But I digress.
Eventually, at around 10:30 p.m. her breathing began to slow down. Then it stopped. I waited a while and called to the nurse on duty: “I think it’s over.” Immediately after these words, mum took another shuddering breath. “Oops,” I said. “My mistake, she’s back again!”
Now, I don’t know whether or not that was her pacemaker kicking in, but another nurse did tell me that people with pacemakers don’t tend to die easily because it keeps bringing them back. No idea if it’s true or not.
Cheers, mum! Now you’re a minor internet celebrity!
Edit: grammar.
A few things:
- A stroke does not equal death. A stroke is either a blockage of asupplying artery to the brain (ischaemic stroke) or a rupture of –most often– an aneurysm of one of the intracranial arteries (haemorrhagic stroke). If left untreated, part of the brain dies off, but that is entirely survivable. Old people can have multiple holes in their brains from minor strokes and still walk around. If a large area is affected the patient may become hemiplegic and will need help with many daily tasks and activities, but a stroke generally doesn’t cause death. There are a few exceptions though (see 2.).
- A person generally doesn’t just stop breathing with a functioning heart and brain. A rare cause could be a basilar artery occlusion or haemorrhagic stroke affecting the midbrain’s respiratory centre.
- We don’t really have a lot of experience with artificial hearts that provide pulsatile flow through pneumatic pumps, the few that have been implanted were mainly for research purposes. What we do have experience with is LVADs, or left ventricular assist devices. These are rotating centrifugal pumps that are implanted inside the heart and aorta and provide laminar, continuous flow. These pumps are so strong they can keep the brain oxygenated even if the heart itself stops pumping (e.g during ventricular fibrillation).
- As for your question: death would be brain death or multi-organ failure. The blood would still flow and provide oxygen, but the end organs (including the brain) would not have enough functioning tissue to sustain life. The LVAD would keep pumping until it runs out of battery or is shut off.
Wouldn’t the blood get thick and stop the flow before the battery died?
The absence of flow is what causes blood to clot. On top of that, people with an LVAD are continuously on strong anticoagulants (vitamin K antagonists) or heparin.
That being said, it is difficult to tell for sure and clotting would definitely occur in multiple places throughout the body as tissues and organs start to become necrotic, as would haemorrhage due to damaged blood vessels.
But whether the actual pump itself would get blocked before the battery runs out, I don’t think so, since that is where the flow is highest still and the battery pack only lasts a couple of hours before it needs to be replaced.
Hours?!?
Yup, there is a cable running through their skin connected to battery packs outside of the body that need to be changed regularly, so patients are always walking around with a bag containing the battery packs wherever they go.
If it only lasts a couple hours, how do they sleep for more than 3 hours?
A couple is maybe a bit of an understatement. It’s likely about 8-10 hours
Most countries use brain death as the deciding factor.
Meaning you body can be held alive artificially, but if the brain isn’t working, you are dead, and there is no chance of coming back.
Of course if the heart hasn’t been beating for 5 minutes and you are not kept artificially alive, you are probably considered dead too.Wondering if ever in the future we’ll be able to reverse brain death…
Our mind is dependent on the exact wiring and firing potentials of the neurons. This is what stores everything (skills, memories, autonomic functions etc).
When the neurons die, this information is rapidly lost. Connections break, and triggering potentials collapse.
Reversing brain death involves reversing that process. It would almost be easier to digitise the brain and simulate it at that point.
What might be possible is localised repairs. Strokes can take out small, but critical areas of the brain. Rebuilding a speech center is a lot easier. The brain can distribute a lot of functions, if required. Putting new material in and letting it both learn to use it, and teach it to function is within the realms of medicine. It’s the difference however between a skin graft and rebuilding a limb that’s been through a wood chipper from the bucket of parts.
That would seem extremely unlikely, as a brain that’s been inactive for just a few minutes, if the person is revived, there is heavy brain damage.
Sounds like you just need more frequent snapshots
Probably not
I would imagine that it would. The alternative is that it would not, which would mean that it would need some sensor to determine that you were no longer alive, at which point it would stop working. There’s no real point for it to have a feature to stop working. It’s probably better for it to be seen as ‘creepy’ by continuing to work inside of a dead body than for it to constantly be checking to see if you’re alive, since the surgery to change the battery is probably pretty invasive, so they want to do it only every so many years, to maximise its efficiency. Also, false positives (negatives?) would be problematic. You’d just want it to keep working regardless.
EMTs probably have a way to shut it down, though. It’s probably impossible or really difficult to do it accidentally, but I’m sure there’s a way. Good question for an EMT if you happen to meet one. They aren’t squeamish. It’s just a matter if they feel like talking to you or not, I suppose.
I don’t know for artificial hearts but can tell you about implants, pacemaker including defibrillator. You’d rather not like that when wanting to die, right?
So they’re turned off at some point (I know because I asked since I am affected). I would think it to be similar with other powered artificial life support components.
Depends on how it’s meant to work. If it amplifies the actual heart’s movement, it might not do much. They usually have a power supply, which will make it keep doing what it does.
So, if it’s a 100% artificial heart, it will do what it does. If it’s there to force the heart to beat without the heart’s natural movements, it will keep force it to beat the same as before, same as if you pass electricity through any muscle.
I happen to have some experience with this, as I used to teach anatomy at university. Many of the corpses that we used, contained metal knees, and other improvements, you can, for instance, clearly see where open heart surgery was used to improve the heart. Now, all these corpses have been soaked in alcohol and formaldehyde to conserve them, so they are obviously dead. A few times however, the olde pumpe may start beating again, if it has artificial components. We tutors laughed our toupees off, as students would get the shock of their lives, when the corpses would sit up, or even chase them across the room!
That would completely traumatize me but I also want to see it myself
Sorry, but I really doubt that this can happen. I also worked in anatomy, I’ve seen and felt what the formaldehyde does to tissue. There’s no way that preserved muscle tissue can react to the stimulation of a pacemaker.
Sounds like you might need to get out more, this is all 100% facts. How do you think the historical Dr Frankenstein did it? One man one olde pumpe
I can’t remember that he use pickled body parts in the novel. Because that’s basically what happens to bodies used for anatomy training. The way they are prepared they can be stored at room temperature for weeks, just covered with a damp sheet.
Sorry, no, the historical Dr Frankenstein. This is all non-fiction and 100% real, and we should take it extremely seriously.
Personally idk I like my corpses removed, no corpses. Gonna try not to panic when I wake up under a damp sheet in the morning, thanks
You mean Konrad Dippel? As far as I know it’s very much disputed whether Mary Shelly took any inspiration from the folk stories around him.
It could be I imagined or dreamed the last three sentences. 🧌
This isn’t what you asked exactly, but I know they can externally disable a pacemaker once the patient is determined to be deceased so it will stop trying to shock the heart back. Otherwise it will continue to try to save the person.
Your body is alive but your brain is dead and that makes Jesus sad.
But that’s fifty percent of the population.
A cold, monotone voice can be heard: “this person has expired. Please contact the authorities.”
Time Stamp 1:33
I would assume that it might keep going until it dies if it’s battery powered. As for non-battery powered, like the replacement valve in me, probably gonna stop when the blood stops flowing. So gonna assume it’s the same for non-battery powered mechanical hearts as well.
