What is the cycle of death?

In medicine, death is generally divided into three stages: near-death stage, clinical death stage and biological death stage.

(1) Dying period: Also known as dying period, it refers to the period when the functions of major living organs are extremely weak and gradually stop before clinical death. The main feature of this period is that the function of the central nervous system above the brain stem is in a state of deep inhibition or loss, while the function of the brain stem still exists.

(2) Clinical death period: it is the clinical standard for judging death. During this period, the inhibitory process of the central nervous system has spread from the cerebral cortex to the lower part of the cortex, and the medulla oblongata is in a state of extreme inhibition. It shows that the heartbeat and breathing stop completely, all kinds of reflexes disappear and the pupils are dilated, but all kinds of tissues and cells still have weak and short-lived metabolic activities. This period usually lasts 5-6 minutes. If you get timely and effective rescue treatment, your life may be revived.

(3) Biological death period: refers to the cessation of life activities of organs, tissues and cells in the whole body, also known as cell death. With the progress of biological death, corpse cold, corpse spot, rigor mortis and corpse corruption appear one after another.

① Corpse cold: Postmortem phenomena first appear after death. About 24 hours, the temperature of the body is the same as the ambient temperature. Rectal temperature is often used as a standard to measure the temperature of a corpse.

② Death spot: After death, due to the stop of blood circulation and the action of gravity, blood drops to the lowest part of the body, and dark red spots or stripes appear on the skin, which is called death spot.

③ Stiffness: Stiffness starts from small muscles, starts from masseter and neck muscles, and goes down to trunk, upper limbs and lower limbs. Generally, rigor mortis begins at 1 ~ 3 hours after death, spreads to the whole body at 4 ~ 6 hours, and develops to the hardest at 12 ~ 16 hours. After 24 hours, rigor mortis begins to weaken and muscles gradually soften, which is called rigor mortis relief.

④ Corpse rot: The common manifestations are corpse odor and corpse green. Generally, it first appears in the right lower abdomen 24 hours after death, gradually spreads to the whole abdomen and finally spreads to the whole body.

* This article is provided by Shanghai Zhonggong Education Physical Examination Network.