Near-death experience: A brief guide for healthcare professionals

Event Description:

Near-Death Experience (NDE) is an experience in which the patient enters clinical death or approaches this state and, after resuscitating, brings back memories of that period. The most accepted explanations are based in neuroscience. It is relatively common, about 14% of the Brazilian and 10% of the world population has already had an NDE. It is intended to approach the phenomenology of NDEs (content of the reports), pleasant and unpleasant consequences (including secondary symptoms and disorders such as depression, altered sense of reality, and sleep disorders). An NDE can bring intense changes to daily lives of the patient, family members and close friends, leading to the breakup of relationships, withdrawal from career and drastic changes in personal values and lifestyle. First care may reduce symptoms and harmful consequences. It is intended to offer basic guidelines for reception of these patients/family and for dignified and assertive care to this increasingly frequent demand.