Premortal Clinical Biochemical Changes

Abstract

Publisher Summary The premortal biochemical changes constitute an important medical aspect. This chapter provides review of the available laboratory data on analyses of blood samples from agonal patients and describes the chemical blood changes occurring during the premortal stage. It is important to distinguish between the occurrence of death of the whole body and of individual organs, tissues, and cells. Clinical death is usually characterized by cessation of respiration and cardiac function, even though rhythmic occurrence of ventricular complexes continues to appear in the electrocardiogram. Clinical death in human subjects is often reversible for several minutes. The cerebral cortex is more susceptible to anoxemia than the brain stem. Because notable changes in the cortical cells can occur even before the state of clinical death, therefore it is important to treat the premortal phase as fast and specifically as possible. With regard to the clinical symptoms associated with the terminal condition, it is observed that although the underlying disease can influence the symptoms to certain extent, but the clinical signs exhibited by adult patients who die slowly generally exhibit great similarity.