Died of ‘‘complications from…’’ is common in cause of death notices. What specifically are these ‘‘complications’’?
The oldest woman died of ‘‘complications from pneumonia’’ this week. I’ve been hospitalized with some serious pneumonia and I know it was ‘complicated’, believe me. But why does the notifications stop at “complication from…”?
For diabetes an example of a complication would be kidney disease.
“Complication from” is a handy way of saying the cause of death without going into which of a few hundred “complications” was responsible in the case.
Many of those complications are beyond the comprehension of the average reader.
My parents died “of lung cancer” - we did not pay for postmortems, so we don’t the actual infection of whatever, or anemia, or… whatever that was technically the medical cause of death.
And we wouldn’t have cared (or even comprehended) the results.
IOW: Convenient shorthand.
My sister died from complications from her leukemia. She developed an infection that was inoperable. On death certificates you’ll often find ‘renal failure’ as the ultimate cause, which is a problem with a lot of diseases.
My mom died of a heart attack, technically - but it was brought on by the problems caused by her COPD; so its reasonable to call it complications from COPD.
One of my in-laws died from complications of leukemia. She actually died of organ failure caused by septicemia caused by a UTI that went wildfire because of the destruction of her immune system, which was a chain of events started by the leukemia.
A co-worker died recently from complications of surgery. She actually died because they turned off life support, but the chain of events started because of a massive stroke on the operating table.
Cancer fatalities, for example, rarely have cancer as the actual immediate cause of death; they die because the cancer precipitates an infection or hemorrhage or liver failure or the like.
Are we related?
Most likely, it’s an infection or a blood clot, or hemorrhage in some cases.
My father’s death certificate states he died of “complications of heart disease”. I found that annoyingly vague, so I called the medical examiner who did the autopsy, and asked him if my dad had a heart attack. The ME was quite clear on that; there was no heart attack, no blockage of cardiac arteries, and no cardiac enzymes to indicate heart muscle death. So what killed him, I asked. “Complications. Of heart disease.” It never got any clearer than that.
My friends dad died last year. Complications from leukemia. He caught a fungal infection that set in his lungs and he died of pneumonia.
Because true cause of death is normally heart failure or asphyxiation. Your heart stops or your lungs stop. But that’s not really enough information. There are several things that lead to your heart or lungs stopping. They are usually complications from __________.
As well as the reasons given, I wonder if in some cases it might be TMI:
i.e. something disgusting or unpleasant-sounding happened right at the end that you’d rather not know about.
If you died from falling from a tall building would that be “complications from gravity”?
“Concrete Poisoning.”
“Sudden Deceleration Syndrome.”
Saying “Complications from Disease X” is a way to indicate the “real” cause of death, instead of the ultimate, nitty-gritty cause of death, especially when the ultimate cause of death might be misleading to whoever’s reading the obituary or article.
For example, you might say that someone died from complications of a gunshot wound, instead of saying that they died of a systemic infection caused by something the bullet brought in with it. The infection is the actual cause of death, but was caused due to the person having been shot, and most people would consider the person to have ultimately died from the gunshot wound, not from the infection, which might imply something less violent.
I saw a 200-year-old list of “causes of death” and one of them was “Planet struck”. Someone else proposed that this was what happened. 
I think death certificates can actually list a direct cause, an underlying cause, and contributing factors, as well as the mode of death. If you shoot yourself, the immediate cause might be blood loss, while the underlying cause is a gunshot wound. If you have a clotting disorder, that could be a contributing factor, or if the mode is found to be suicide, “depression” might be a contributing factor. Or, if you are in intractable pain from cancer, and the gunshot wound is self-inflicted, that might be cited as an underlying factor.
I read an obituary of a suicide who had been in a car accident several years earlier, and his parents cited his physical condition as the “real” cause of his death. He was in pain, had memory loss, walked with a cane even though he was only 31, and was on dialysis. My mother knew his parents, and concurred with what they wrote. I sort of knew him, and even though I know people who go on after terrible injuries, everyone is different.
Almost no one ever dies of AIDS, it’s worth mentioning. They die of pneumonia, usually, although more people are being honest, and saying that it was a “complication of AIDS,” in their obituaries. Their death certificates don’t list AIDS as the direct cause of death, though: it will be an underlying cause, or a contributing factor.
When I tried to run an obit for my dad, I said “heart failure.” *The Washington Post *wouldn’t accept this as a cause of death because it was non-specific. I explained that there was a legal inquiry about malpractice underway and we didn’t really want to name a cause of death at all (which the Post required). I was told I had to, in the “complications of…” format, or they wouldn’t run it.
I thought the code in obituaries was traditionally “Long illness” = cancer usually, “Brief illness” = heart attack or stroke, “Suddenly” or “At home” = suicide or overdose. With some exceptions, of course.
Those are code for “The family chooses not to disclose.” Anything more is supposition on your part.