Eli5: Why there are many dying patiens feels suddenly much better and die soon after?
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It’s called terminal lucidity. Terminal lucidity, shortly before death usually within the last month or so there may be an unexpected return of mental clarity, of memory, suddenly regained consciousness, even in some cases increased physical mobility (though that’s more rare, because bodies really break down). We don’t really know why it happens, it just sometimes does.
ETA: if you happened to be so lucky that you get that time with your loved one, appreciate it. Don’t start rallying for more treatments or crazy stuff. Let things end on a high note.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen this occur with pets as well. Older pets will sometimes have a burst of energy or be like their old selves again in the days before passing away.
You have a lot of chemicals being stored up in your body. They control your moods and energy and so on. When you die the ‘control mechanism’ that acted as a dam releasing them at appropriate times essentially shuts down. Everything is released (similar reasons why everyone shits themselves, as other ‘control mechanisms’ fail).
When you’re dying think of it like that control breaks down and you have all those happy hormones released. For a while you’re ‘high’ – which may balance out as ‘back to normal’ cos you’re ill and such. Of course you have no more reserve anymore. All those chemicals have been released and it’s a last lucid time.
A few other advantages come of that. We feel better, overwhelmed by positive feelings and a bright light at the end of the tunnel and so on. Those who had ear death experiences kinda experienced that release and it usually gets translated as a religious experience – which religion depends on where they grew up or who they grew up with. But it’s that sense of feeling loved and overwhelming peace as the hormones (adrenaline, serotonin among others) give us energy and make us feel loved.
Some people think evolutionarily speaking that’s useful cos imagine how terrible it’d be seeing every person who died just freaked out and screaming and in terrible pain every time. Others just put it down to that release of chemicals.
Either way, the last bits of those happy hormones are released and you have that ‘they’re getting better’ phase until those chemicals are used up and then you literally have nothing left.
I see this *terminal lucidity* phenomenon stated pretty regularly on various subreddits, and I think that it is very important for people to temper their expectations about it.
My best friend works as a nurse in hospice care for eight-years, and she has claimed to have never seen a patient demonstrate this phenomenon.
I am not claiming that this never happens, but I believe everyone should temper their expectations because when people close to us are near the end of their lives, our propensity to cling to hope for any positive news increases. While we would all cherish the ability to communicate to an incapacitated loved one one final time for closure, it sadly does not happen as frequently as the internet would have us believe.
So, while *terminal lucidity* many be a possibility, it is by no means the norm. If anyone has something that they need to say to a loved one, tell them today. Life is short, and everyone needs to know that they are loved every once in a while.
A reasonable hypothesis is that as somebody nears death, the mechanisms that were fighting to “fix” the body have nothing left to work on. Imagine your stomach is failing. Your body might use all its resources on it, but then it just shuts down. There’s nothing left to do. So all that energy spent is now available again. Of course, without functioning organs, death is hours away.
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