Some dementia patients ‘come back’ at the very end

Days or even hours before death, some dementia patients become lucid again – and scientists want to know why. Journalist Billy Brennan joins host Krys Boyd to discuss “paradoxical lucidity,” where dementia patients seem to “wake up” and interact right before they decline again, what this “rally” means about our consciousness and brain activity before death, and why this happens more often than scientists realized. His article “Why Do Some Dementia Patients ‘Return’ Just Before They Die?” was published in The New York Times Magazine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices