According to recent research, persons receiving CPR can keep having brief periods of consciousness for as long as an hour after their heartbeats flatline, even though we typically consider somebody dead when the heart stops beating.
The study, which was co-authored by teams from 25 hospitals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Bulgaria, was released this month in the journal Resuscitation. They monitored 567 patients who suffered cardiac arrest while being treated in a hospital for 2 years.
A handset was used to notify researchers when a hospitalized patient’s heartbeat stopped. The research team assessed the patient’s visual and auditory consciousness while medical personnel did CPR, and if CPR continued for an extended period, they set up instruments to monitor electrical activity and oxygen levels in the patient’s brain.