Abstract
A questionaire study was made concering family attitudes toward brain death and organ transplantation using thirty six persons from eleven families. Eighteen family members (50%) accepted the concept of brain death and 27 persons (75%) understood the explanation on brain death offered by the doctor. Fifty percent of the family members were not satisfied with medical treatment after brain death was established. Although the judgment of brain death was mostly acceptable, parents were reluctant to accept the brain death determination, and few of the family members were willing to consider organ transplantation as soon as the judgment of brain death was made. We concluded that we should be prudent to start the discussion of organ transplantation and discontinuation of ventilation just after the judgement of brain death in Japan so far.
