Signs of Clinical Death Important to Know

Clinical death is a state of transition from life to death. It has a reversible character. A person who is in this state, under a certain confluence of circumstances and with competent rescue activities, can be brought to life.

That's why you need to know the rules of dealing with the victim. And first of all, it's important to recognize the clinical death very correctly and very quickly. Why do we need to distinguish signs of clinical death? To save a person's life.

At its onset, there is an end to cardiac activity. The breathing stops, all the observed manifestations of life disappear.

It is important to know that from this moment the rescuer has no more than 4 minutes (the early period of clinical death) in order to win the life of the departed. During this time, the absence of oxygen in the brain does not lead to fatal changes in the body.

Signs of clinical death - apnea, asystole, coma. These signs appear only in its early period and lose its meaning after the onset of an irreversible stage - biological death. The less time has passed from the establishment of clinical death before the resuscitation, the more likely the survival of the patient. Therefore, in a threatening state, diagnostic and therapeutic actions are conducted in parallel.

• Apnea (lack of breathing) can be seen with the unaided eye. The chest ceases to rise and fall.

Do not waste precious seconds on applying threads, mirrors or cotton wool to the external respiratory organs. No one knows exactly at what instant clinical death will give way to biological.

• Asystole (lack of pulse on two cervical carotid arteries) also does not tolerate protracted action. It is enough to put both hands in the palms of the neck, under the ears on the right and on the left. If there is no pulse, the clinical death is likely to have occurred. Do not waste time, probing the radial arteries in your arms. Even before checking the pulse, it is necessary to give the patient artificial inspiration and exhalation of the mouth to mouth (this first aid technique is widely known).
• A coma is a loss of consciousness. Expanded and do not respond to light pupils.

How to reanimate?

1. Place the victim on his back, on a hard surface.
2. Get your tongue out of your mouth far ahead. If there is a foreign body in the upper respiratory tract (an alien object accidentally got there), take it out too. Head the patient back. Chin a little up and up. The position of the lower jaw is pushed forward.
3. Pulmonary ventilation in the mouth.

Do not forget about the indirect massage of the heart. Find the lower edge of the sternum (middle line). To rise higher by 2 centimeters (also the middle line). Here is the point that will need to be compressed.

1. With the palm (right hand) touch the point of depression.
2. Put the other hand (left hand) on the right palm. Keep your hands straight.
3. Spread the "fan" out of the fingers of both hands, touch the body with your hands only!
4. Squeeze approximately to a depth of 3.5 centimeters and let go.
5. If the rescuers are two, squeeze the chest 5 times for 1 breath.
6. If the rescuer is one, squeeze 15 times with two breaths.

If the resuscitation is successful, the pupil will narrow to light, a pulse will appear on the carotid arteries, the facial skin will turn pink, breathing will become independent.

There are other signs of clinical death - in a more optimistic classification. They can be observed if the first aid measures managed to save the life of the victim.

In this case, clinical death is considered to be two-stage.

In the first stage, described above, from three to five minutes is reserved for the reanimator for first aid, saving the life of the patient. During the first stage, the vital parts of the brain remain viable, despite oxygen starvation.

If the resuscitation is delayed, the cortex of the brain dies, or even all of its departments. Such a patient will be able to live long on an artificial respiration apparatus and artificial ventilation of the lungs. But he will never regain consciousness. The rest of his life (which can last for many years) he will spend in a deep coma, which brought him a clinical death. Signs of it, in this case, will change somewhat: the patient will breathe.

When should biological death be recognized? Clinical and biological death are links of one chain.

In the event that the resuscitation measures could not be carried out or they were not successful, the signs of clinical death give way to the picture of biological death: all physiological processes stop in all tissues and cells of the body.