Hearing is widely thought to be the last sense to go in the dying process. Now, the first study to investigate hearing in palliative care patients who are close to death provides evidence that some may still be able to hear while in an unresponsive state. Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to measure the dying brain’s response to sound. The findings may help family and friends bring comfort to a person in their final moments.

This research, published recently in Scientific Reports, is the first to investigate hearing in humans when they are close to death.

Using electroencephalography (EEG), which measures electrical activity in the brain, the researchers analyzed data collected from healthy control participants, from hospice patients when they were conscious, and from the same hospice patients when they became unresponsive. The patients were receiving palliative care at St. John Hospice in Vancouver.

«In the last hours before an expected natural death, many people enter a period of unresponsiveness,» says study lead author Elizabeth Blundon, who was a PhD student in the department of psychology at the time of the study. «Our data shows that a dying brain can respond to sound, even in an unconscious state, up to the last hours of life.»

This new insight into the dying brain’s response to sound can help family and friends bring comfort to a person in their final moments.

The researchers introduced study participants to various patterns of common and rare sounds that changed frequency. When the rare tone pattern occurred, both groups responded by giving a pre-arranged signal.

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