Medicine:Agony (dying)

Short description: State experienced by a living entity before dying

Agony (the death struggle), Egon Schiele

Agony (of Ancient Greek: — struggle) is the terminal state of the body preceding the onset of death, which is associated with the activation of compensatory mechanisms aimed at combating the extinction of the vital forces of the body. Agony is a reversible condition: in some cases (for example, with agony caused by bleeding, shock, asphyxia, etc.), a person can be saved.

Sources

• Gerhild Becker, Carola Xander: Zur Erkennbarkeit des Beginns des Sterbeprozesses. In: Franz-Josef Bormann, Gian Domenico Borasio (Hrsg.): Sterben. Dimensionen eines anthropologischen Grundphänomens. De Gruyter, Berlin 2012. S. 121.