What kind of words does the person whose death is approaching speak?

by wezlo

What is common in talking about great historical people is an anecdote that "said that at the very moment of his death." However, there are few people who can speak the language clearly even in the vicinity of death, and in reality many people will talk mouthless words or shit at the very moment of death. A study on such "what words dying people are speaking" is finally progressing in recent years, says journalist Michael Erard , nonfiction writer.

How Do People Communicate Before Death? - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/how-do-people-communicate-before-death/580303/

Mr. Lisa Smartt who works as a foreign language teacher noticed that Mr. Mort Felix, her father and clinical psychologist at times dying at home, often speaks meaningless words . Mr. Felix who was 77 years old at the time was affected by cancer and it seems that consciousness was often uncertain due to analgesic purpose morphine.

Mr. Felix said she began to tweet words such as "very much sorrow" and "let me get down from here", and now I have come to see hallucinations with a lot of people in angels and rooms. There, Mr. Smartt sat on Felix 's bedside and began to note the words Felix speaks on the dead floor.

Mr. Smartt, who was interested in what he talked about before his death, wanted to conduct academic research to record the last words of people approaching death. Mr. Smartt personally interviewed the family member of the terminal patient and the medical staff, although the request to the cooperation to the graduate school was refused, and Mr. Smartt psychologist Raymond · Known as a work such as " The world after embarrassment " He said that he succeeded in getting Mr. Moody 's cooperation. And Smartt who gathered 2000 conversations from 181 people who died in 1997 announced the word of death in a book called " Words at the Threshold " in 2017.

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Mr. Smartt's work is one of the few linguistic corpus of the words spoken by people who died near death. In 1921, Arthur MacDonald, an American anthropologist, divided people into 10 occupational categories (politicians, philosophers, poets, etc.) in order to appreciate "the psychological state of the people who were about to die" We are publishing research that analyzed the trend of the last word.

According to MacDonald's research, soldiers tend to speak "a relatively large number of requests, instructions, advice", and philosophers, including teachers and mathematicians, are more prone to "words of doubt, answer, admiration" It was said that there was a trend. Religious figures and royals tend to express satisfaction and dissatisfaction in many cases, and artists and scientists say that they did not say much.

Mr. Smartt and MacDonald's research is considered to be a few attempts to quantitatively analyze and evaluate the last word. In many cases, the last word that a man issued is often conveyed as a part of a biography, anecdote, or story that conveys the greatness and fun of the person, so much realistic analysis has not been done.

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In 1992, Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley who were hospice nurses published " Final Gifts " which recorded conversations with people who died near death. Mr. Callanan and Mr. Kelley say, "As people weaken, communication with other people will become more difficult."

Maureen Keeley, who studies communications at Texas State University, points out that as the person approaches death, the physical strength is weakened, the body does not stick to long-term conversations, and lung capacity to speak is insufficient. Therefore, it seems that people talk as whispering, trying to communicate with only one word. Communication is obstructed not only by lack of physical fitness but also by mouth dryness, lack of teeth, drugs for pain relief and so on.

People who suffer from Alzheimer's disease and severe dementia, and who have not been able to produce normal words for many years can often not speak well at the end of the term. On the other hand, falling into a " delirium " state where consciousness becomes cloudy or an illusion occurs and normal communication can not be obtained is not uncommon for people who die as a result of diseases such as cancer. The development of medical technology in recent years has lengthened the average life expectancy of people, while the number of deaths are increasing as they finally become delirious.

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Mr. Smartt got the last word from Mr. Felix and others and discovered it as a pattern, "Pronouns like" this "and" that "that people close to death refer to something that is clear There is something called "There is nothing." For example, Mr. Felix said, "I'd like to lower that" to the earth ... but I do not know how to do it, there is no restraint of the earth ", but what the one pointed to was unknown about.

Also, Mr. Felix had repeated meaningless words as "The green dimension!! The green dimension!", But Mr. Smartt said repeated repetition of the same phrase "appreciation" or "resistance to death "It seems he has noticed that he expresses themes such as"

And, as one of the things that Mr. Smartt was most surprised, "Dying people speak differently over days, weeks over a story". For example, a man talks about "a train stopping at a station", after a few days talking about "the train has been repaired", and after a couple of weeks talking about "the train ran into the north direction" did.

If someone visits the room of the person who has just killed and that person talks suddenly that there is "boxing player", many people may think that "This person is seeing hallucinations" Hmm. But a few days later, if we were talking about "clothing and appearance of boxing players", people might notice that the story that I talked a few days ago has not ended and the story is telling the continuation "Said Smartt.

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Callman and Kelley note that "episodes about travel" that people approaching death often tends to be a metaphor of death, and if you start talking about traveling, it means that death is close I am doing it. When a 17-year-old girl recorded by two people was dying by cancer, he said "I do not have a map, I can not go home without a map!" Mr. Smartt also recorded that there was a person talking about the trip, and those who approached death often use figurative expressions.

Research on the words of people dying is more beneficial for physicians and nurses who work in hospices and more, and those who face death more than merely linguistic interests. Doctors may be able to alleviate the fear of a patient's death by making the roadmap of the dying more detailed. Nurse understanding the culture of people who are close to death can increase communication with people who die.

On the other hand, it is also a fact that it is difficult to study people who have quite a death from cultural taboos about death and ethical problems. And from the viewpoint of healthcare, communication studies that do not directly reduce cancer pain are not easy to receive funding for research. Mr. Erard said the record that Mr. Smartt announced is the first step to understanding the words of such dying people.

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