Have you heard that some terminally ill patients get better right before they die? This is called terminal clarity, but… Why does this happen?
In care homes in the UK, a survey of 208 staff found that 7 in 10 patients with dementia or mental confusion were seen improving before death.
Is there an explanation for the clarity in the final stage?
These events have occurred since the time of Hippocrates, when he and other ancient Greeks “believed that the soul remains fundamentally intact while the brain is affected by physical malfunctions or disturbances of the mind,” the BBC reported.
“They believed that during and after death the soul was freed from material limitations and regained its full potential. “The human mind would be more than a mere product of brain physiology, perhaps even a kind of ‘transcendental subject’ or ‘hidden inner life,'” German biologist Michael Nahm told BBC Brazil.
There are several hypotheses that try to explain what is happening, but none of them have been proven yet.
It says that in seriously ill patients, a chemical reaction occurs in the body that acts as a survival instinct. Also coincidence or the continued existence of consciousness during death.
Reference image. Photo: Creative Commons.
There are few studies that talk about it
For many researchers and experts, changes in consciousness are common in dementia patients in the early to middle stages of the disease.
Most studies on this topic focus on patients with neurodegenerative diseases; However, there are other people too tumorsBrain abscesses, meningitis, advanced lung disease, coma or stroke.
It is also worth mentioning that this sudden improvement does not always occur on the eve of death.
In 2009, Michael Nahm and Bruce Greyson from the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia (USA) compiled 49 described cases.
Although the sample does not allow general conclusions to be drawn on this topic, it does provide some clues.
Of 49 cases, 43% experienced a sudden improvement one day before death, 41% between two and seven days, and only 10% between eight and 30 days.
The topic continues to be of interest to many people and there are many reports of people eagerly hoping that their loved one will recover when it is finally their last breath.
You might be interested in:
