Should I request a post-mortem?

[stealersmealdeal]

Just looking for opinions here - my mum died last week, she was only 75 but immobile and bedridden in a care home due to years of lack of mobility, which itself was down to mental health issues. Her death was a bit sudden - she was sitting up reading 30 minutes before she was found by a carer - and the cause on the DC is recorded as "progressive physical frailty".

A family member thinks this is not specific enough and would like a PM carried out to establish whether it was heart failure, a stroke, or what. I'm happy to do whatever the sensible thing is, but I'm not sure it's worth it, with the delay it will cause for the funeral.

I suppose this is a common reason recorded on death certificates - does anyone know? I don't mind a PM being ordered, from an emotional point of view - if it would help, then fine. The family member who'd like it done has heart issues and I think wants to establish if there was any genetic syndrome or anything present that caused my mum to go so suddenly. Any thoughts welcome.

I'm so sorry for your mum;s death. Your feelings must be so raw and fractured now.
I don't think tht relatives can request post mortems. It has to be a doctor or coroner, I think.
Unless you have reson to suspect that the quality of her care led to her death, I would feel that a post mortem might not, in any case, be the best way for you to begin to approach what has happened.

It was a sudden death,so naturally you have a lot of questions and hard-to-process feelings. But this is in the nature of grief. It is also natural to fix on some concrete path of action, something practical that 'must be done', particularly if you have been on that road for a while, liaising with her carers, ensuring that everything necessary is being done for her welfare. It is hard to let go of that and suddenly be faced with a different reality.

xxx

Tough one. My initial thoughts are it won't change outcome and might not achieve anything even answers relative wants.

I’m sorry for your loss.

I’m not really sure what a PM would offer in terms of clarity and may actually not give a distinct reason for death. Your mum was obviously in poor health, if she had been immobile and bedridden for years she would likely have had some degree of muscle weakness and the heart is a muscle, it could have just worn out.

Whilst 75 certainly isn’t very old, it’s a not unusual age to die, especially for someone in poor health.

I expect your relative wants a concrete reason for her death in order to make sense of it. I suggest they talk to her GP rather than seek a PM (which may not be authorised anyway) to achieve some peace and understanding.

Agree with pps. When dd1 died the coroner made the decision about a PM. Personally, I would think about what you’re trying to achieve - it won’t change the outcome and is quite intrusive. I’m sorry about your mum.

Thank you both, that's helpful. I don't have any issues with the quality of her care, no. But the care home told me that it was completely up to me whether she has a PM or not, which is confusing - I would have thought it would have to come from a doctor too. Perhaps relatives can request one via the doc, if the doc agrees, I suppose?

I know, it might delay things and we still won't have any answers three weeks from now - I'm leaning towards just wanting to get planning for the funeral now. But hopefully the family can come to a decision together. Thanks again.

Sorry, I meant also to say that,as far as I know, doctors/coroners won't authorise a post mortem unless there are special circumstances which mean that the death needs to be investigated, either to answer important medical questions about a specific condition or in the case of suspicious circumstances. I can't imagine that the significant resources required for aPM, and the degree of intrusion into the deceased person, could be justified without meeting those criteria.

I'm another one who has had a post mortem carried out on a family member. It is not a healing process for the family. It's bureaucratic, it takes time to get lab results, everyone is too busy to spend much time liaising with the family about the results, etc.

My tuppence:
When my mom died suddenly, we declined PM.
My brother was trained as a cardio tech & got to witness efforts to save her; he understood exactly what the staff were doing & why it didn't work (& talked about all of what he saw).

I felt uncomfortable with idea of her body being cut open, tbh. I didn't feel strongly about it, but I preferred not to have that happen when we had a good enough idea why she couldn't survive.

ps: your relative would be better off paying to get a detailed heart scan of own heart, which might inform them about their own body, not what happened in the deceased person's body.

If she was immobile and bedridden, that increases the risk of death hugely. She was 75 so it that young. So sorry for your loss but why go through the trauma of a PM?

So sorry for your loss xx

If the relative wants to know about a genetic heart condition I woukd def get a pm don’t if you can as it sounds like it would not distress you.

i have some potential genetic health conditions and am estranged from one side of my family and it is problematic that I can’t get a full family history.

@lljkkit is VERY useful for the management of many genetic conditions to know if/how they have appeared in previous generations

Would be interesting to know if OP's relative is likely to have a genetic condition that can't be detected & assessed by a blood test.

We know in our family we have anatomical quirks, my nephew has situs inversus, his half-sister merely had a reversed bowel, my mother had an unconnected kidney. We didn't seek more information but then, it was obvious why my mother died, so I did say my contribution was mere tuppence. Anyway, dying suddenly at age 75 when frail enough to live in a nursing home is within normal life-ending expectations, and having a MH condition (+ immobility) makes cardioVD problems very likely, so not really suggestive of an important genetic risk contribution.

I suspect that in OP's situation I'd yield to relative's curiousity-desire-to-have-PM but would not be wiling to advocate or pay for it. Relative has to do all that.

They are not going to authorise a PM to determine possible congenital defects that may or may not be hereditary. That’s not what a PM is for.

@Edinburghmusing if suspicion of a genetic heart condition (which sounds unlikely here) the procedure would be for the living relative to be referred for genetic assessment and possible cardiac investigations. Not carry out a PM on a deceased relative who may or may not have had any issues.

Couldn't the relative pay for a privately-funded PM? Or would that be illegal.