Estimation of Time Since Death in Medical Practice
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Abstract
Estimation of time since death is one of the most important purposes of postmortem inquest and its significance is addressed either in criminal or civil cases. After death, a human body has gradual physical and chemical changes over time until becoming fossils. Such changes depend on their duration and change rates which are under various factors. Internal factors may not be predicted whereas external factors have environmental temperature as a major factor. In order to estimate the time since death as close as to the time when the death really occur, such postmortem changes including supravital reactions, algor mortis, livor mortis, rigor mortis an decomposition, should be taken into consideration as much as possible. The more the time since death pass by, the more inaccuracy and the wider range of the estimated time occur, thus necessitating the indirect evidence and logical reasons for helping in evaluation all available data and making a conclusion about the time since death.
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