Test Your Knowledge on Changes in Body after Death

Introduction

Forensic taphonomy is a branch for studying what happens to a body after death in terms of how it decays and changes. This helps find out the time since death. After death, the body undergoes three stages of change, namely immediate, early and late signs of change (1^✔).

Immediate Signs of Death

• Loss of sensory perception and voluntary motor function
• Stoppage of breathing
• Stoppage of circulation

Early Signs of Death

• Pallor and loss of elasticity in the skin
• Ocular changes
• Primary muscular flaccidity
• Body cooling
• Development of postmortem staining
• Stiffening of the body

Late Signs of Death

• Putrefaction, involving the breakdown of tissues
• Formation of adipocere, a fatty substance
• Mummification, resulting in desiccation of the body

By taking this, you can learn some facts about the changes that occur in our bodies after death. This quiz contains ten questions with a short summary of answers. The topics covered are:

• Ocular changes (1^✔)
• Body temperature after death (2^✔)
• Rigor mortis (3^✔)
• Livor mortis (4^✔)
• Decomposition (5^✔), (6^✔), (7^✔), (8^✔)
• Preservation of the dead body (9^✔)
• Hair and nail changes after death (10^✔)