5 Signs That Your Loved One Is Dying

As a death midwife, I pay attention to transitions: from years to months, months to weeks, weeks to days, days to hours. I don’t have a crystal ball but I can assess which phase of the end of life cycle we are in using markers.

First, please know that people do sometimes cycle in and out of these different phases.

Second, remember my story of Magic Maw-Maw. We don’t always have these markers. Sometimes markers look different, depending on the disease process.

Third, I find these markers to be most helpful when we are considering an elderly person or someone with a terminal diagnosis.

If your loved one is sick or aging and you are looking for clues to where they are in the end of life process, I’d keep an eye on these 5 markers. If I detect these 5 signs in my loved one, it’d be time to have a conversation with hospice.

Other things I pay attention to: increase in pain, increase in recurrent infections, increase in doctors or emergency visits, increase in caregiver exhaustion, increase in disorientation.

We could make a whole other graphic similar to this one for each phase of the dying process but I hope this is helpful if you are looking for markers of transition from years to months, months to weeks.