Last offices

The last offices are the procedures performed, usually by a nurse in the developed world, to a dead person shortly after death has been confirmed. They can vary from hospital to hospital, and culture to culture.

Name

The word "offices" is related to the original Latin, in which officium means "service, duty, business"[1]. Hence these are the "last duties" carried out on the body.

Procedure

Often the body of the deceased is left for up to an hour as a mark of respect. The procedure then typically includes the following steps, though they can vary according to an institution's preferred practices:

References