Hearing Persists at End of Life, Brain Waves of Hospice Patients Show

August 27, 2020

(U.S. News & World Report) – Even if they appear unresponsive, dying people may still be able to hear. That’s the takeaway from a Canadian analysis of hospice patients in Vancouver. Researchers compared electroencephalography (EEG) data — a measure of electrical activity in the brain — collected when patients were conscious and when they became unresponsive at the end of life. Those patients were compared to a healthy control group.