The 'window of opportunity' for death after severe brain injury: family experiences

Kitzinger, Jenny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2593-8033 and Kitzinger, Celia 2013. The 'window of opportunity' for death after severe brain injury: family experiences. Sociology of Health & Illness 35 (7) , pp. 1095-1112. 10.1111/1467-9566.12020

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Abstract

This article builds on and develops the emerging bioethics literature on the ‘window of opportunity’ for allowing death by withholding or withdrawing treatment. Our findings are drawn from in-depth interviews with 26 people (from 14 different families) with severely brain injured relatives. These interviews were specifically selected from a larger study on the basis of interviewees’ reports that their relatives would not have wanted to be kept alive in their current condition (e.g. in vegetative or minimally conscious states). Our analysis tracks the decisionmaking processes that have led to the situation in which life-sustaining treatments continue to be delivered to these patients – maintaining them in a state that some families describe as a ‘fate worse than death’. We show how the medico-legal ‘window of opportunity’ for allowing the patient to die structures family experience and fails to deliver optimal outcomes for patients. We end with some suggestions for change.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	brain injury; death; window of opportunity; ethics; vegetative; minimally concious
Publisher:	Blackwell Publishing
ISSN:	0141-9889
Funders:	Wellcome Trust
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	06 May 2023 03:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/42108

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