ABSTRACT
Patients who are brain dead often have unusual spontaneous movements when they are disconnected from their ventilators. Patients who fulfill all the criteria for death, including deep unresponsive coma, may experience any of the following: goose bumps, shivering, extensor movements of the arms, rapid flexion of the elbows, elevation of the arms above the bed, crossing of the hands, reaching of the hands towards the neck, forced exhalation, and thoracic respiratory-like movements. Solid organ transplants, which depend on the procurement of organs from brain-dead patients, could not have been institutionalized without the existence of the ventilator and other life-support technologies. With the assistance of technology the physical death of patients, whose entire brains are traumatized beyond hope of recovery, can be postponed. If the patient is not to become an organ donor, then usually the process is prolonged only briefly, while brain death is confirmed.
