Fig. 2

a Symptoms in the final illness reported by informants. Informants commonly reported that their relative had suffered at least one symptom during their final illness: distress, pain, depression and delirium or confusion were each reported to affect 40–50% of the deceased study participants. Depending on the symptom, 6–13% of informants were unsure whether or not their relative had experienced symptoms. b Symptoms in the final illness reported by informants for older people of different cognitive status. Pain was less commonly reported to have affected the most cognitively impaired individuals than those with milder dementia/cognitive impairment or none (29% versus 48%), a difference just touching statistical significance (p = 0.05). There were no other significant differences between cognitive groups in reported symptoms during the final illness except for the expected higher prevalence of ‘delirium or confusion’ amongst those most cognitively impaired