Nobody I personally know, no. I can’t think of anyone in my professional sphere who has even mentioned it as a possibility, but on the flip side, I haven’t gone around asking. More generally speaking, periods of increased lucidity are a thing in patients with dementia. There are some forms, not so much in Alzheimer’s, where this is a diagnostic hallmark. As disease progresses, they become fewer and far between, and I would hasten a guess that eventually they vanish altogether.
This now makes me think of the possibility that elderly dementia patients might well have a “normal” lucid episode as they are dying of other causes. This would be coincidental, but could well give rise to the claim of terminal lucidity as a phenomenon! Now that this has occurred to me, it makes a ton more sense than the original formulation.
Thank you. Do you know anyone who claims to have observed it?
Nobody I personally know, no. I can’t think of anyone in my professional sphere who has even mentioned it as a possibility, but on the flip side, I haven’t gone around asking. More generally speaking, periods of increased lucidity are a thing in patients with dementia. There are some forms, not so much in Alzheimer’s, where this is a diagnostic hallmark. As disease progresses, they become fewer and far between, and I would hasten a guess that eventually they vanish altogether.
This now makes me think of the possibility that elderly dementia patients might well have a “normal” lucid episode as they are dying of other causes. This would be coincidental, but could well give rise to the claim of terminal lucidity as a phenomenon! Now that this has occurred to me, it makes a ton more sense than the original formulation.