McFadden says the feedback to her videos has been mostly positive. 'I just saw that there's a missing gap in treating the whole person and really figuring out what the family what the patient would really want long term,' McFadden said. McFadden declined to name her place of employment for privacy reasons. It was in the ICU where she became passionate about death and wanting to educate others about it, too. McFadden said she has worked as a nurse for 14 years, first working as an intensive care unit nurse for 'nine or 10 years' before transitioning to hospice nursing. 'What we found is the vast majority of people, nearly 90% of people, in the last usually weeks of life, can report at least one very distinct experience, which is usually vivid, comforting and very meaningful,' Kerr said.īut what's true for one hospice patient is not true for all, and their experiences are often very individual, Rice said. The experience is actually very common, according to research conducted by Kerr and his team. What I came to find out through his wife is that they had experienced several miscarriages early on, and they never did have children,' Rice said. 'A gentleman who was clearly seeing babies. One such experience with a patient has always stuck with her, she said. Kelly Rice, the senior coordinator of social workers at Tidwell Hospice, said she's seen both of the phenomena in her 11 years of working with hospice patients. They usually say they're sending a message like 'We're coming to get you soon' or 'Don't worry. The experience usually isn't scary for the patient, McFadden explains in her video. McFadden talks about other unexplained phenomena in her videos, including an occurrence where patients say they see dead relatives, friends and even pets up to a month before they pass. 'It certainly is safe to say that it's not uncommon.' 'I don't think there's really good numbers on that,' said Kerr. Christopher Kerr, a hospice physician for 23 years. The technical term for the occurrence is terminal lucidity, and it's hard to know just how often it happens, said Dr.

Staff shortages: Nursing home staff plunged during pandemic 'So much so that we try to educate the family about this before this happens so it doesn't devastate them when they suddenly pass after doing so well for a few days.'ĭeath and TikTok: A woman on TikTok wasn't afraid to show her death. 'It happens to probably a third of our hospice patients,' McFadden says in the video.

Many patients die within hours or days of 'The Rally.' The burst of energy is short lived, however. One of those videos discusses a phenomenon dubbed 'The Rally.' Hospice patients will suddenly seem like they're getting better – many resume eating, some start walking again and others will talk or laugh. It just kept happening over and over again.' 'I think I made like three or four TikToks and four days later, one of them blew up. I felt like it was a very taboo topic that shouldn't be so taboo,' McFadden told USA TODAY. 'I knew I wanted to get information out in general.

Hospice nurse phenomena