Post-mortem changes of the vascular system-a thanatological study using multidetector computed tomography.

Forensic pathologists have to deal with post-mortem changes of the human body. Those post-mortem phenomena are familiar and largely described in thanatology. However, knowledge about the influence of post-mortem phenomena on the vascular system is more limited, except for the apparition and development of cadaveric lividity. The introduction of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the forensic field and the expansion of their usage in medico-legal routine, allow for exploring the inside of corpses differently and may play a part in the understanding of thanatological processes. This study aimed to describe post-mortem changes in the vascular system by investigating the presence of gas and collapsed vessels.We investigated post-mortem MDCT data of 118 human bodies. Cases with internal/external bleeding or corporal lesion allowing contamination with external air were excluded. Major vessels and heart cavities were systematically explored and a trained radiologist semi-quantitatively assessed the presence of gas.Collapsed veins were observed in 61.9% of cases (CI95% 52.5 to 70.6) and arteries in 33.1% (CI95% 24.7 to 42.3). Vessels most often affected were for arteries: common iliac (16.1%), abdominal aorta (15.3%), external iliac (13.6%), and for veins: infra-renal vena cava (45.8%), common iliac (22.0%), renal (16.9%), external iliac (16.1%), and supra-renal vena cava (13.6%). Cerebral arteries and veins, coronary arteries, and subclavian vein were unaffected. The presence of collapsed vessels was associated with a minor degree of cadaveric alteration. We observed that arteries and veins follow the same pattern of gas apparition for both the quantity and the location.In post-mortem radiology, collapsed vessels and intravascular gas are frequently visualized and as a result of all post-mortem changes, the assessment of the distribution of blood can be confusing. Therefore, knowledge of thanatological phenomena is crucial to prevent post-mortem radiological misapprehensions and possible false diagnoses.

A call for epidemiology and thanatology to address the dying, death, and grief pipeline among Blacks in the United States.

Dying, death, and grief are significant events that impact individuals, families, and communities. In the United States, Blacks historically have higher morbidity and mortality rates than other racial-ethnic groups. While death is a normal and natural phase of the life-course process, high incidents of infant mortality, premature death, and preventable death are not. The disproportionate burden of dying, death and grief among Blacks have detrimental consequences which demand interdisciplinary interventions from public health and death study researchers. This manuscript explores dying, death and grief from three distinct fields of study: (1) epidemiology of death, (2) social epidemiology of death, and (3) thanatology.

[Dynamics of mortality according to the materials of the forensic medical examination bureau of a particular region]. / Dinamika smertnosti po materialam byuro sudebno-meditsinskoi ekspertizy otdel'no vzyatogo regiona.

OBJECTIVE: To show the dynamics of the structure of deaths of the main types of violent and non-violent death on the material of the thanatological department of a separate regional bureau of forensic medical examination. Among the violent causes are considered: mechanical injury, mechanical asphyxia, transport injury, poisoning. Among the nonviolent causes of death the diseases of circulatory system, pneumonia, infectious and oncological pathology have been studied. The period from 2001 to 2020 was investigated. Dynamic changes over a selected period are most clearly demonstrated by the ratio of numerical data to the original 2001 indicators taken as 100%. The data presented objectively reflecting the dynamics of the number and proportion of certain types of death are only the initial stage of the analysis undertaken. The second step should be the determination of the causes of the identified changes that require an integrated approach including medical, demographic and socio-economic data.

What do we owe the newly dead? An ethical analysis of findings from Japan's corpse hotels workers.

While people are still alive, we owe them respect. Yet what, if anything, do we owe the newly dead? This question is an urgent practical concern for aged societies, because older people die at higher rates than any other age group. One novel way in which Japan, the frontrunner of aged societies, meets its need to accommodate high numbers of newly dead is itai hoteru or corpse hotels. Itai hoteru offer families a way to wait for space in over-crowded crematoriums while affording an environment conducive to grieving. Drawing on conversations with itai hoteru employees, we delineate the values this contemporary death practice expresses and show how these values comprise part of the broader idea of a good death. A good death implies duties on both sides of death's divide: to both the dying and the newly dead.

Futures of digital death: Past, present and charting emerging research agenda.

This special issue entitled "Futures of Digital Death: Mobilities of Loss and Commemoration" explores the topic of digital death and how technologies are reconfigured by and reconfiguring social relationships with the deceased and dying loved ones as well as the larger ecosystem supporting such relationships. This Introduction article starts with an overview of the past research on digital death intended to provide a relevant context for the five papers included in this issue. Then, we reflect on how the current papers, or the present research, build on the past and can be used to address existing gaps and to inform future new research directions in order to move the field forward.

Digital legacy: Designing with things.

This paper explores how theories of things can create new forms of agency for the dead. It considers how meaning is constructed through the use or translation of our diverse collections and environments online. These memorials and rituals offer a plurality of narratives, experiences and esthetics, which have the potential to give a wider scope for constructing a durable biography after death. The paper draws conceptual links between digital and physical materials and aims to expand interdisciplinary discourse around the way design can create new forms of legacy through rethinking the role of digital things in our lives.

Emails and death: Legal issues surrounding post-mortem transmission of emails.

The paper is a first thorough examination of what happens to one's emails on death. The paper demonstrates that some content of emails can be protected by copyright and transmitted on death accordingly. The paper then analyzes the contractual provisions of the main email providers, Google and Microsoft, in order to determine how these contracts, regulate the transmission of emails on death. The author finds that these provisions complicate the issues of property and transmission of digital assets and do not offer a meaningful control over the assets for their users. The paper adopts a novel focus introduced in the author's earlier research, the idea of post-mortem privacy that is the right to privacy after death. This concept serves as an argument against the default transmission of emails on death without the deceased's consent, whether through the laws of intestacy or by requiring the service providers to provide access to the deceased's emails. Finally, the paper canvasses a solution which combines law and technology. It is argued that much more control should be placed in the hands of emails users. Post-mortem privacy, a potentially contested phenomenon, only accentuates the need to better account for the interests of the deceased, having in mind the volume of personal data and personal nature of emails. Therefore, an in-service solution is promoted, backed up by policy and legislation.

The body of knowledge in thanatology: An outline.

The Association for Death Education and Counseling has updated its articulation of the body of knowledge in the field of thanatology. In doing so it has relinquished the use of a matrix format in favor of a more serviceable outline containing three major sections: Arenas of Thanatology, Practice Considerations for Professionals in the Field, and Contextual and Theoretical Considerations. Accompanying the outline is a new commentary on the state of the field itself, along with an annotated bibliography of recent relevant publications.

ADEC at 40: Second half of life wisdom for the future of death education and counseling.

The author uses a developmental model of nonprofit organizations (Simon, 2001 ) to examine the history, current status, and future prospects of the Association for Death Education and Counseling on the occasion of its 40th anniversary as a professional society. Borrowing from the work of Richard Rohr ( 2011 ) on second half of life wisdom, the author suggests that such maturity represents the association's best pathway to consolidating its accomplishments to date and sustaining continued growth in the future. Eight aspirational goals are proposed for ensuring reinvigoration of ADEC members as individual death professionals and of the association as a collective body.

In search for the grave of 100 Poles executed on March 20, 1942 in Zgierz, Poland - research by SIGO (Network for Genetic Identification of Victims).

It can be reasonably assumed that remains exhumed in 2012 and 2013 during archaeological explorations conducted in the Lucmierz Forest, an important area on the map of the German Nazi terror in the region of Lodz (Poland), are in fact the remains of a hundred Poles murdered by the Nazis in Zgierz on March 20, 1942. By virtue of a decision of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance's Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes Against the Polish Nation, the verification of this research hypothesis was entrusted to SIGO (Network for Genetic Identification of Victims) Consortium appointed by virtue of an agreement of December 11, 2015. The Consortium is an extension of the PBGOT (Polish Genetic Database of Totalitarianisms Victims). So far, the researchers have retrieved 14 DNA profiles from among the examined remains, including 12 male and 2 female profiles. Furthermore, 12 DNA profiles of the victims' family members have been collected. Due to the fact that next-of-kin relatives of the victims of the Zgierz massacre are of advanced age, it is of key importance to collect genetic material as soon as possible from the other surviving family members, identified on the basis of a list of victims that has been nearly completely compiled by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) and is presented in this paper.

Renaissance of criticism on the concept of brain death--the role of legal medicine in the context of the interdisciplinary discussion.

BACKGROUND: In the practice of legal medicine in Germany, the assessment of brain death is of minor importance and attracts little attention. However, since several years, international criticism on the concept of brain death has culminated. By reviewing literature and the results of a questionnaire distributed among the participants of the 93rd Annual Congress of the Germany Society of Legal Medicine, the state of knowledge and the current views on brain death were evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Literature search of recent publications regarding brain death was performed (PubMed database, references of legal medicine, Report of the President's Council on Bioethics, USA 2008). A questionnaire was developed and distributed among the participants of the Congress. RESULTS: The assumption that individual and brain death are synonymous is criticized. Internationally, there are trends to harmonize the very different clinical criteria to assess brain death. The diagnostic advantage of novel techniques such as CT angiography is controversially discussed. It becomes apparent that procedures which record the blood flow and perfusion of the brain will be applied more in the future. Regrettably, these developments are not described in the literature of legal medicine. Moreover, among German forensic scientists, different views concerning brain death exist. The majority favors its equivalent treatment with individual death. The thanatological background can be improved concerning certain aspects of brain death as well as its legal implications. CONCLUSION: Teaching and research in legal medicine should include the subject brain death. Expertise in forensic science may contribute to the interdisciplinary discussion on brain death. The transfer of actual knowledge, also on disputed ethical aspects of thanatology, to physicians of all disciplines is of great importance.

[Divine cadavers: gender, medical discourse, and anatomical collections in the legend of Pedro González de Velasco]. / Divinos cadáveres: género, discurso médico y colecciones anatómicas en la leyenda de Pedro Gonzólez de Velasco.

This paper examines the relationship between the public image of Pedro Gonzólez de Velasco (1815-1882), famous for his anatomical collections and his Anthropological Museum, founded in 1875 in Madrid, and the popular legend related to the death, embalming and exhumation of his daughter Concepción. The doctor who is committed to the nation becomes a mad scientist, and his official biography is transformed into an urban legend. Beyond the merely anecdotal, I show how the aesthetics associated with female corpses and artificial women organize cultural imaginaries, bringing together medical discourses and literary and artistic representations.

[FATAL DIAGNOSIS AND THE HORIZON OF HUMAN LIFE (REVIEW)].

The majority of widespread cancers on the stage of clinical manifestation is incurable and therapy is only for the purpose of life extension. So, it isn`t surprising that most of people realize the word "cancer" as a verdict. A man himself doesn`t believe in his own death and doesn`t realize the fact that "Death is an appropriate phenomenon, but not punishment". Facing the death causes existential crisis. The understanding of inevitable fact of death arouses short, but desperate fight against it, which is, in most cases accompanied by anxiety. Some fundamental changes in phsychoemotional status take place within the young patients (knowing the diagnosis), which help an individual move into a new stage of actions with forming new values and aims. All these give conditions for better adaptation of an individual with phsychic traumas. So, the research of a person`s emotional situation, facing the death, will help to indentify the necessity of prophylactic pharmacotherapy with anxiolytics and to overcome both the negative associations with death and the fear connected with it (preserving life horizon).

Lived Observations: Linking the Researcher's Personal Experiences to Knowledge Development.

As researchers in palliative care, we recognize how involvement with seriously ill and dying persons has an impact on us. Using one's own senses, emotional and bodily responses in observations might open intersubjective dimensions of the research topic. The aim of the article is to highlight how phenomenological theories on intersubjectivity can be useful to develop rich and transparent data generation and analysis. We present three field note examples from observation in a hospice ward, which illuminate how researcher awareness of aspects of intersubjectivity can add valuable insights to data and analysis. Out of the examples, we elaborate on three arguments: (a) how the researcher's lived experience of time and space during fieldwork triggers new research questions, (b) how observations as an embodied activity can bring new insights and open new layers of meaning, and (c) the value of observations in gaining insight into relational aspects in a hospice.