The concept of brain death

ABSTRACT

Technological advances in medicine and the development of intensive care units have faded the frontiers between life and death. Brain death is a diagnosis and there are prerequisite criteria, a differential diagnosis and a decision making process to consider which must be unambiguous, straight forward, understandable and infallible. Brain death should not be confused with conditions as permanent vegetative states or with euthanasia. In the present article, the criteria for the determination of brain death according to the standing Hellenic Law are presented.