Mary Lincoln's presence at Abraham's death-bed

[wsanto]

(08-18-2013 06:06 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I sat beside my mother for two days and nights while she was dying from congestive heart failure and finally a stroke. I instinctively talked and sang to her most of the time. When the nurses found me doing that, they told me to keep going because the hearing is the last of the senses to be lost.

I can't know if my mother was brain-dead during this time because we have Do Not Resuscitate health instructions, but my question to Bill is whether or not Lincoln could have heard his wife after he became deathlike?

Medically speaking, No. It would not only require Lincoln's ear and brain hearing the sound but the very high brain function of relating that sound to memories and developing an emotional tie to those memories.

Most people that are comatose are not brain dead: these functions may very well be active on a subconscious level. In the case of your mother and most others, the sounds of loved ones may have a comforting effect.

It is also theraputic for the loved one's psyche to continue to connect with the patient on some level.