The objective was to describe the physiologic changes of brain death in potential donors of organs and tissues for transplantation. Exploratory descriptive study with prospective data and quantitative approach carried out in emergency and intensive care units hospital adult, in the period from April to October 2011. The population consisted of 32 potential donors of organs and tissues for transplantation. After approval of Ethics Committee, data were collected, tabulated and analyzed by descriptive statistics by SPSS 15.0 software and presented in tables. Physiological changes were: hypotension (100%), hypothermia (75%), hypernatremia (62,5%), diabetes insipidus (37,5%), hyperglycemia (32,3%), infection (25,0%), hypertension (9,4%) and corneal ulcer (3,1%). It was found that knowledge of these changes allows the team of health care to direct the potential donors according to their needs and thus keep the organ/tissue viable for transplant.
Nursing; Tissue and Organ Procurement; Brain Death
