Hospice nurse reveals sad truth about deaths in the run-up to Christmas

A hospice nurse and end-of-life coach has revealed the extremely sad truth about deaths in the run-up to Christmas.

Now, while the festive season is an exciting time for family, friends, and food, many people across the globe each year have to deal with heartbreaking losses of a loved one in the time before the big day.

According to Willed, several studies suggest that there's generally a higher chance of people - not just in end of life care - dying on Christmas, Boxing Day, or New Year's Day than any other single day of the year.

So much so the 'phenomenon' actually has a name - the 'Christmas Holiday Effect'.

A hospice nurse and end-of-life coach shared her experience with deaths around the Christmas holiday period (Instagram/@death.care.coach)

End-of-life coach, Katie Duncan, took to Instagram to share with her followers exactly why we tend to see more people die around the holiday season.

Katie explained that when she was working as a hospice nurse, she would 'all of a sudden' get an 'influx' of individuals coming onto hospice services.

"Typically these individuals would die very quickly," she continued. "They were coming on what we would call last-minute admissions, when someone is very, very sick and already showing signs of transitioning toward actively dying."

The end of life coach added that she would also see that some of the clients she had for a 'very long time' would 'out of nowhere' take a big turn as the holiday season came around and 'they would die after being on service for several months or even several years'.

Katie shared that there are 'many different theories' as to why this might happen, noting: "There's really no particular point that we can pinpoint to say this is why so many people die at the end of the year.

Katie explained a little more about the 'phenomenon' (Instagram/@death.care.coach)

"In some cases, I see that either someone with a serious illness or even health care providers really want to help that person, or that person really wants to make it through or into the holidays for that year, and their body just isn't able to make it to the holidays."

In a caption, Katie added: "There are theories but there’s no one thing to pinpoint. I see it as another unexplained phenomenon."

A few months back, Tyla sat down with end-of-life nurse, Julie McFadden, to learn a little more about what the process looks like leading up to a terminal patient taking their last breaths.

Julie, who goes by the handle @hospicenursejulie online, regularly posts on social media in a hopes of alleviating 'fear and stigma around death'.

Instead, she makes an active effort to break down the barriers when it comes to discussing death, the signs that come before and exactly what happens after.

The hospice nurse noted a handful of warning signs that could indicate a person is near to death, including phenomena known as the 'death stare', the 'death surge', the 'death reach', 'visioning', 'terminal agitation', and a slightly more scary-sounding one known as the 'death rattle'.