To understand the processes underlying change, it is important to distinguish between trajectories that are pathologically determined, death-related (e.g., terminal decline), and normative (i.e., usual and age-related).
Therefore, we determined deaths based on matching on all of these identifiers.
The issue of determining death becomes further confused by the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), which, ironically, was drafted with the intent to clarify the issue.
Under Dr. Kass the council produced reports with a somewhat philosophical bent on issues like the screening of newborns and how to determine death.
In days of yore, the absence of a heartbeat was the gold standard for determining death, but even that wasn't foolproof.
Donation after cardiac death was once the only form of transplantation from deceased donors -- until 40 years ago, when doctors began using cessation of brain activity as a way to determine death.
Furthermore, laws for determining death would have to be revised.
First, what considerations favor this approach over the traditional focus on cardiopulmonary function in determining death?
A defender of tradition might respond that we can avoid most of these unsavory consequences while legally adopting traditional criteria for determining death (see, e.g., DeGrazia 2005, 152 8).
As we have seen, however, modern life-supports permitted cardiopulmonary function without brain function, setting up a competition between traditional and whole-brain criteria for determining death.
The army determines death tolls either visually, or by counting the number of vehicles it destroys and estimating how many militants each vehicle carried, said the official, who declined to be identified.
