Could this be a sign he is going to die?

[Mamacherie]

I know this might sound silly to many but my grandpa is in Australia and has a really nasty fall. He has broken his eye socket and is in hospital. Since it has happened my Aunty has told me he keeps "seeing" people that aren't there.
He apparently was complaining about a boy coming into the room and putting a dog on his bed and insisting there were people in the room with them when there weren't. My family laugh and think he is hallucinating but a part of me wonders if maybe he is really seeing something and it is a sign he is going to cross over soon.
AIBU to think this? Does anyone have similar stories?
It is making me a little upset as I haven't seen him in awhile and he hasn't met my youngest son yet. I wouldn't be able to go due to COVID as well so really hoping it doesn't mean anything but can't help feeling this is a sign.

I hallucinated a whole buffet when in intensive care and on morphine. I could clearly see crusty loaves of bread, bowls and salads.

My patients who are on opiates often have awful hallucinations so it's highly likely to be that. Also bladder infections or infections generally.

My friend is a ''Poor reactor'' to opiates...He was a in hospital after surgery and was hallucinating horribly, seeing things that weren't there.
Most likely just a drug reaction. ..Hope he recovers fast.

Could be delirium which can be caused by side effects, dehydration, constipation and other things. Hopefully hospital are taking this seriously

How well is your grandad normally? Is he generally still fit and active?
I say this from a place of kindness, but my dad and both my grandmothers died after nasty falls, i was told each time its pretty common. However all were previously very ill indeed with COPD, other issues likes multiple strokes and heart attacks , and all wheelchair bound.
If your grandpa has been very frail before this it may well be worth you trying to visit if you can.
Im sorry you have this worry. For you and your grandpa

A few of my relatives have had this before dying BUT it’s literally been in the hours before the passed away rather than an ongoing thing. I think in this case it’s more likely to be the injury than a sigh of him dying.

My grandmother for instance went from totally normal and healthy to insisting that she needed to pack because my grandfather was there to take her to London and then dying within 24 hours.

I don’t actually believe in ghosts in case this sounds like I do! But the mind is an odd thing!

I hope he recovers soon.

When my gran broke her leg the morphine made her crazy, to the extent where she tried to get up and run out of the hospital. Once she was off the morphine she was absolutely fine again and couldn't remember any of it.

Almost definitely delerium - quite common in older people when acutely ill.

As the illness/injury resolves, it will likely resolve.

Having delerium does indeed slightly increase the risk of death, but as long as the cause is treated, he should make a recovery.

Agree about hallucinations from medication, or from the head bump. My FIL was on strong pain medication once and saw his long-dead brother on the ceiling. FIL recovered and lived another 10 years.

Hope he's OK

Concussion and pain killers!

My grandmother got really cross about all the parties the staff were holding in her room after hours. But she enjoyed watching the cats hiding in the ceiling which she would point out to you as they would ocasionally pop their heads out from the titles.

Delirium is a very strange thing.

My grandfather was in his eighties and fell off a ladder, broke his arm and bumped his head.
After the op, he wasn't being himself (confused and dithery). We told the doctors, they said it was probably his age and the shock of the fall. But we know him and we knew that this wasn't like him at all.
They agreed to do a head scan and it turned out he had a bleed in the brain.

It's more likely to be due to the head injury and the painkillers. It's spooky though.

To be honest, OP... this is more likely to be the result of the head injury or a urinary tract infection. If he is bed-ridden he probably has a catheter. There is a high chance that he has a urinary tract infection from the catheter, or the fall itself has caused a head injury. Either way, the poor man deserves more respect than family laughing at him.

My grandma had Charles Bonnet due to vision loss, she would see people and patterns. It was explained as the brain filling a gap, so it knows you should be seeing something, so puts something there, sorry if that doesn't make sense. My grandma had full capacity and usually accepted the people weren't real although it was confusing in busy places! She lived for well over ten years after it started and it was in no way linked to her death, I hope your granddad gets better soon.

How old is grandad?
I was a clinician in that setting for 25 years and to be frank in many cases it is a flag the end is near. It could be a plethora of other things though, affects of medicines, dehydration or infections. The elderly are a strange bunch though and I would have many come in due to a fall etc, no real harm resulting and even though nothing clinically significant you could just tell they had reached the end of the road. You would send them to a ward with some reason or other and invariably they would pass within a few days.

I did find it odd that your family are laughing about things as I fail to see what if it is funny?

If his vision has been affected by the injury, it could be Charles Bonnet syndrome, which is a disease in which visual hallucinations occur as a result of vision loss.

Did he have to have a general anaesthetic? My gran had hallucinations when she was recovering from surgery for which she had a general.

I think your family on the scene need to make his physicians aware of the hallucinations if they haven't done already. They should check for a UTI too as that can cause delirium in the elderly.

No, I don’t think it suggests anything like that.

1. He’s on tons of pain killers that are making him see things.

1. He’s had a nasty bump to the head and that’s why he’s seeing things.

1. If he has suffered any damage to his eye that has affected his sight, even temporarily, he might have the symptoms of Charles Bonnet Syndrome, whitch is basically where the brain makes up shit because it’s not receiving visual signals from an eye that has suffered sight loss, kind of like phantom pain from an amputated limb. I get it all the time, both in the eye that I had removed and the other that has lost its sight. Mostly I know it’s just my brain playing tricks, but occasionally something catches me out, even though I know if there was anything there I wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. CBS can be quite distressing and could be made worse if a person is already scared and confused or is wacked out of their head on pain meds I imagine.

Thank you everyone for your replies. Seems like I am letting my emotion cloud my judgement.
He is 94 years old so is very old - he was very fit for his age. Still walking, completely lucid etc but there is no denying his age is a major risk. His poor face is black from the bruising.

I hope he makes a good recovery OP.

Visual and auditory hallucinations are defintely part of the end of life path and can signify you are near the end

Or it could be painkillers and concussion

Bruises can look pretty awful - though usually by the time they look at their worst, the pain is actually much better. Hope he is not too scared by the hallucinations. Send him all our best wishes!