There really isn’t much in the way of empirical evidence regarding this. It would be difficult to set up studies and experiments to even get to get that evidence.
So, you’re stuck with anecdotal info.
On that level, absolutely. I did health care as my main job from 92 until 2008. Nurse’s assistant.
During that time, my two biggest patient bases were geriatric and hospice. People that were dying, in other words.
The patients that had no dementia lasted longer than the ones that did, in terms of time from needing an NA to keep them cared for to time of death. The ones that had a goal, a thing they wanted to see happen, or to do, absolutely did better not only in terms of time, but in how they managed their life until they died.
Something as nebulous as “will”, that we don’t even have a way to quantify at all is difficult to impossible to credit with anything at all. But we know that the mind and body influence each other. But I am convinced that we have some ability to maintain our lives to some degree in extremis. The only question is how much, and how much of that is individual.
Looking back at all of it, things blur, but there were so many patients with terminal cancer that just didn’t die while moving towards a goal, that died within days of that goal being met. And it really didn’t matter what that goal was. Could be something as minor as seeing crocuses bloom again, to something like seeing their child married or graduated. But it happened so fucking often it’s a little scary.
There really isn’t much in the way of empirical evidence regarding this. It would be difficult to set up studies and experiments to even get to get that evidence.
So, you’re stuck with anecdotal info.
On that level, absolutely. I did health care as my main job from 92 until 2008. Nurse’s assistant.
During that time, my two biggest patient bases were geriatric and hospice. People that were dying, in other words.
The patients that had no dementia lasted longer than the ones that did, in terms of time from needing an NA to keep them cared for to time of death. The ones that had a goal, a thing they wanted to see happen, or to do, absolutely did better not only in terms of time, but in how they managed their life until they died.
Something as nebulous as “will”, that we don’t even have a way to quantify at all is difficult to impossible to credit with anything at all. But we know that the mind and body influence each other. But I am convinced that we have some ability to maintain our lives to some degree in extremis. The only question is how much, and how much of that is individual.
Looking back at all of it, things blur, but there were so many patients with terminal cancer that just didn’t die while moving towards a goal, that died within days of that goal being met. And it really didn’t matter what that goal was. Could be something as minor as seeing crocuses bloom again, to something like seeing their child married or graduated. But it happened so fucking often it’s a little scary.