Difference between brain dead and coma?
To answer your question simply, if he was moving his hands, he was clearly *not* brain dead at the time. The terms “brain death” and “coma” are *not* interchangeable. For starters, brain death is absolute, whereas people in comas are in varying “levels” of a coma — the Glasgow coma scale is an objective way to determine the “level” of coma someone is in (eye opening to what kind of stimulus, best verbal response, and best motor response to stimuli comprise the GCS). Brain death means there is “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.” It must be proved using strict guidelines. According to the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), key features of brain death include: – (1) “unresponsiveness, absent brainstem reflexes … [and] … absence of effective respiratory movements in the presence of adequate oxygenation and arterial pCO2 of 60 mm Hg …” – (2) “adequate observation period to guarantee irreversibility.” – (3) “exclusion of reversibl
