Chapter 16
A sense of resolution or completion concerning a loss or unfinished matters; it does not necessarily mean grief has ended.
Closure
Examination of a body after death to determine the cause of death or learn more about disease or injury.
Autopsy
Occurring or performed after death.
Postmortem
A repeating breathing pattern in which breaths gradually become deeper, then shallower, followed by a pause in breathing.
Cheyne-Stokes respirations
Difficulty acknowledging or accepting the reality of a loss, serious illness, or approaching death.
Denial
Focused on relieving symptoms and suffering and improving quality of life during serious illness; palliative care can accompany treatment intended to cure disease.
Palliative
A notice announcing a person’s death, often including biographical information and details about funeral or memorial services.
Obituary
A legal document appointing another person to make health care decisions when the individual cannot make them; it remains effective during incapacity.
Durable power of attorney for health care
The study of death, dying, grief, and the responses of individuals and society to these experiences.
Thanatology
Grief experienced before an expected loss, such as during a loved one’s terminal illness.
Anticipatory grieving
A legal document that records a person’s wishes for future medical care or names someone to make health care decisions if the person cannot do so.
Advance directive
A public official who investigates certain deaths, especially those that are sudden, unexplained, violent, or suspicious.
Coroner
Acknowledging the reality of a loss or approaching death and beginning to adjust to it; acceptance does not necessarily mean feeling happy or free of sadness.
Acceptance
Grief is the emotional, physical, social, and spiritual response to loss. The grieving process is the individual’s ongoing adjustment to that loss.
Grief, grieving process
Comprehensive care for people approaching the end of life that emphasizes comfort and quality of life, along with support for their families.
Hospice
Active: deliberately causing death through a direct action to end suffering. Passive: an older term for withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment; current clinical ethics distinguishes allowing natural death
Euthanasia
The state of having experienced the death of someone significant, including the period of grief and adjustment that follows.
Bereavement
The absence of something valued, such as a person, relationship, body function, role, possession, or sense of independence.
Loss
A response to loss or approaching death involving attempts to negotiate for a different outcome, often through promises or “if only” thoughts.
Bargaining
Complete and permanent loss of all brain function, including brainstem function. Brain death means the person has died.
Brain death
Permanent cessation of the functions necessary to sustain life, determined by circulatory and respiratory criteria or by neurological criteria.
Death
A person designated to make health care decisions when someone cannot make them; the term may also refer to the document making that appointment.
Health care proxy
A cloth or covering used to wrap a deceased person’s body.
Shroud
In U.S. usage, a practice in which an eligible person with a terminal illness voluntarily self-administers medication prescribed to bring about death under an applicable law.
Medical aid in dying
Persistent, intense grief that significantly interferes with daily functioning and adjustment to a loss; closely related to what is now called prolonged grief disorder.
Complicated grief
Temporary stiffening of the muscles after death caused by chemical changes in muscle tissue.
Rigor mortis
Care focused on relieving pain, distress, and other symptoms while supporting physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort.
Comfort care
A sense that something meaningful or desired remains possible, such as comfort, connection, peace, or relief from suffering.
Hope