can you last without a brain?
No, a person who is brain dead can't live… without machines. But a person can have damage to the brain and be in a coma and needs to be on live saving machines which breathe for the person, which feed the person, but they are not really brain dead. They are comatose. Some people have been in a coma for 10 years; very rare occasions and they woke up from that. They had to learn again to talk and simple things, but some comatose people who were unconscious for 10 years and needed to be artificially fed. They can sometimes wake up and lead a normal life again. They may have to relearn like a baby, everything again. But totally brain dead people are dead and nothing will ever bring them back to life. Their body can be kept automatically alive by machines, but the machines do all the bodily functions: the breathing, everything. If the machines are switched off, the person stops breathing. There are comatose people, who are deeply unconscious who don't need to be on a breathing machine. So if they breathe on their own, they are still alive and there is still hope. But if they are totally brain dead, they can only exist as long as they are connected to oxygen and heart and lung machines. They will never recover whatever happens. It’s impossible. Coma is a different matter. If a person is declared to be brain dead, they are beyond any medical care that can revive them and they are not coming back to life.
It is now considered by the medical profession and supported by legal and some ethical consensus that if a person's entire brain is dead, the person is dead. The reason is that if the entire brain is destroyed, there is absence of spontaneous breathing and expected cessation of heartbeat soon. It is on the basis of this concept that all life support treatments which the patient may have had in place before brain death has been established can be removed because the patient is now dead. It also provides the opportunity to obtain organs from a brain dead patient, who had previously given consent, while the organs are still in good condition for transplantation. Families of a brain dead patient may have to be educated about the physiology. However, some religious groups and even some healthcare workers are uncomfortable with a brain death definition of death since the patient may still have a heart beat and wish to wait until there is persisting absence of heart beat, the classical criterion.
It is now considered by the medical profession and supported by legal and some ethical consensus that if a person's entire brain is dead, the person is dead. The reason is that if the entire brain is destroyed, there is absence of spontaneous breathing and expected cessation of heartbeat soon. It is on the basis of this concept that all life support treatments which the patient may have had in place before brain death has been established can be removed because the patient is now dead. It also provides the opportunity to obtain organs from a brain dead patient, who had previously given consent, while the organs are still in good condition for transplantation. Families of a brain dead patient may have to be educated about the physiology. However, some religious groups and even some healthcare workers are uncomfortable with a brain death definition of death since the patient may still have a heart beat and wish to wait until there is persisting absence of heart beat, the classical criterion.
How long can you live without the brain?
The brain is expected not to live long after the body passes. It depends on how long if you are wired up to all these life-saving machines.