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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

By the way, I've got a question to whoever is into the Alzheimer research: I have recently heard Alzheimer symptoms instantly disappear shortly before the patient's death - people regain their sane mind in full (or close to) capacity but then die in just about a day. Is this true or a myth? Were there at least some such cases documented credibly?

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Terminal lucidity is a fairly well documented but not very well understood phenomenon.

Here are a few review papers I could dig up in a couple of minutes:

2019: https://juniperpublishers.com/pmcij/PMCIJ.MS.ID.555601.php

2017: https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/cpp-2017-0003

2011: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21764150/

2009: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20010032/ (with focus on dementia)

Scientific American blog post: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/one-last...

My grandmother passed away a few years ago. Her Alzheimer's had gotten very severe, although technically she died with the disease not of it. Her symptoms definitely did not diappear shortly before her death.

However, she did have a moment a few months before where her symptoms seemed to completely vanished for a couple hours after a doctor flushed out her Alzheimer's meds. Unfortunately I was not there, but my mom said she was suddenly completely attentive and remembered everything like her old self during that time. I don't know if it was coincidence, related to the meds, or if the flushing process did something (I'm told it was intense). I wouldn't be surprised if other patients have experienced similar things, but I don't think it's related to death.

My grandfather had a similar fate. Roughly 4 months before his death, my uncle was taking care of him for a week while my grandmother was traveling. My uncle had, for the longest time, been adamant that the medication had made his dementia worse. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, he stopped administering the dementia meds for the week that he was caring for him.

It was bizarre interacting with him during this lucidity. He was able to do most physical things without assistance (he still had a bad hip) and you could engage with him in conversation. He knew who I was without prompting, something he hadn’t been able to do for about 4 years. He knew all his children and grandchildren. He also shared stories from his middle years, something he had stopped doing during the early stages.

It wore off though, in about a week or so he began to have the brain fog set in. His doctor was also not too happy to hear about the withdrawal.

The only person who seemed disturbed and worried about this moment of lucidity was his caretaker, who had worked with dozens of elderly folks with memory issues prior. She said it almost always happened before a sudden decline. She was right, about 3 weeks later he became very ill and then died within a few months.

could you tell us a bit more about the flushing process and what these meds were? if they were anti-anxiety & anti-depression meds, then perhaps they could have had the effect of unsedating a person?

The flushing process was some kind of medicine which induced vomiting. I'm not familiar with the meds, but I know they were intended to delay the progression of Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, we can't know if it actually worked for her because we don't have a control to compare to. It's tempting to say they were ineffective given what happened, but for all we know things could have been even worse.

Alzheimer patients have moments, brief, at random times, where lucidity seems to be there for a bit. This could certainly happen in the moments before or day before dying, and for family this might seem meaningful when it happens. But there is not any kind of connection between the things. Patients just get worse over time until they die.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I spent years visiting family in Alzheimers wards and this was my experience too. Some days patients would have a brief moment of clarity, but usually it was just the typical symptoms.

For instance the sister for a famous (for the state) news reporter would seem to come out of it a bit to talk about her sister, but mostly she just walked along the walls, tracking the trim with her fingers and mumbling to herself.

Neither my grandmother, who died of a stroke that was probably related to her late stage Alzheimer's, nor my father, who died of severe Alzheimer's, experienced terminal lucidity. But it seems to be a real phenomenon, and worthy of study.

> Is this true or a myth?

It is a nice myth to pull at your heart strings

Your cynicism is misplaced as terminal lucidity is, in fact, a well documented phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_lucidity

And an excellent band name for a Progressive Metal band, if ever I heard one.

Do you have a citation? I had someone who passed away at home who had a period of greater clarity relatively shortly before they passed. Many things I think could have contributed - but it didn't seem like a myth.

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