What happens to the body in end
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Physical changes are likely to happen when you're dying. These happen to most people during the terminal (dying) phase, whatever condition or illness they have. This can last hours or days. You'll start to feel more tired and drowsy, and have less energy. You'll probably spend more time sleeping, and as time goes on you'll slip in and out of consciousness. Not wanting to eat is common in people who are dying. You may also find it difficult to swallow medicine. Your healthcare professionals can discuss alternative ways of taking medicine with you and your carers, if necessary. Your family and carers may find it upsetting or worrying if you do not eat, especially if they see you losing
weight, but they do not need to make you eat. As you get closer to dying, your body will not be able to digest food properly and you will not need to eat. If you cannot swallow to drink, your carers can wet your lips with water. Your breathing may become less regular. You may develop Cheyne-Stokes breathing, when periods of shallow
breathing alternate with periods of deeper, rapid breathing. The deep, rapid breathing may be followed by a pause before breathing begins again. Your breathing may also become more noisy as a result of the build-up of mucus. The body naturally produces mucus in your breathing system, including the lungs and nasal passages. When you're healthy, this mucus is removed through coughing. When you're dying and no longer moving around, the mucus can build up and cause a rattling sound when you breathe. Confusion and hallucinationsMedicines or changes in the chemical balance of your brain can cause confusion or hallucinations. A hallucination is when you see or hear things that are not there. If you become confused, you may not recognise where you are or the people you're with. Some people may be restless or seem to be in distress. For example, they may want to move about, even though they are not able to get out of bed, or they may shout or lash out. This can be out of character and distressing for family and carers. The medical team can rule out or treat any underlying causes, such as pain, breathing problems or infection, or calm the person who is dying. If no underlying cause can be identified, there are medicines that can ease distress. Cold hands and feetYour feet and hands may feel cold because of changes in your circulation. Blankets over your hands and feet can keep you warm. Your skin may look slightly blue because of a lack of oxygen in your blood. This is known as cyanosis. More informationFind more information about the last hours and days of life, including advice for carers and relatives.
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reviewed: 15 October 2020 Death is everywhere. Every single minute, an average of 100 people die somewhere in the world, and we humans aren't great at coming to terms with that, or the inevitability of our own demise. But understanding how our bodies end up when they finally give out is a crucial part of knowing how they function in life, so AsapSCIENCE is here to take us through a blow-by-blow account of death, according to science. Within seconds of death, your body's supply of oxygen will be depleted, and your brain activity surges. This might sound a little counter-intuitive, seeing as dead people don't have thoughts, but you can think of this activity as the last dying bursts of activity from neurons that are no longer supported by oxygen and hormone production. The body's stores of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - the body's main source of energy - are also depleted, so following any last-second twitches, your muscles will totally relax, including sphincter. This means if your bowels were full at the time of death, they won't be for very long. (We told you this would be morbid.) In light-skinned people, your body won't start taking on that stale deathly hue until about 15 to 20 minutes after death, at which point the lack of blood flow to the capillaries starts to drain the colour out of you. And if that sounds gross, think about this - because your heart has stopped pumping, there's nothing pushing your blood around your body, so depending on how your body is positioned when you die, the blood will end up pooling around down the bottom. As the video above explains, the longer this 'blood pooling' is left to sit, the more your skin will take on a reddish-purple discolouration, which will hit its maximum intensity at around the 12-hour mark. It's not the nicest thing in the world to think about, but the way our blood pools and discolours our skin can tell coroners a whole lot about when we died, and how we were positioned at the time of death. At around 3 to 6 hours after death, your body will experience the infamous process of rigor mortis. This occurs because when your cell organelles start deteriorating, they release calcium into muscle cells, and these bind to proteins that are responsible for muscle contraction. This means that your body will completely stiffen up, and you could be stuck in a really strange position for as long as 24 to 48 hours after death. By this point, hopefully someone has found you, because decay is well and truly on its way. I'll let the boys from AsapSCIENCE explain all the gory details of that process in the video above, but let's just say you're going to get up close and personal with a little thing called putrefaction, and it's about as pleasant as it sounds. Enjoy… And now that you know the science behind what happens to the corpse, check out the video below of the world's largest body farm, which is giving scientists the opportunity to learn even more about what death does to our bodies, thanks to a number of donated corpses. Warning: this is not easy watching, please mentally prepare yourself before clicking play! |
