When is a patient dead after flatlining?
In 'surprising' findings, a study tracks how the heart can struggle to restart as death unfolds.
When life-sustaining treatments are withdrawn in a critically ill patient and the heart has stopped pumping blood, the heart will appear to briefly restart itself in 14% of patients, a study suggests.
The analysis, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was undertaken to confirm when a patient can safely be declared dead and organs harvested for donation.
Researchers used electrocardiograms and blood pressure measurements to assess the typical practice of waiting five minutes after the last heartbeat before declaring death.
Of the 631 patients who were tested, the longest it took for any patient’s stopped heart to briefly show signs of life again was four minutes and 20 seconds.
