CHINESE authorities have consolidated the emergency medical team caring for Deng Xiaoping by sending experts on Parkinson's disease to Beijing.
The move follows a sudden deterioration in the patriarch's health last week, marked by the 90-year-old's failure to respond to stimulus.
A source close to the 24-member team said specialists had privately indicated that while they were reasonably confident of keeping Mr Deng alive for up to four months, they expected the patient to die 'some time between June and August'.
But the source stressed Mr Deng had not lapsed into a coma.
'The downturn started last week,' he said. 'The old man would doze off and, for an hour or so, not respond to attempts to wake him.
'And, after the medical staff had woken him up, his mental faculties would still exhibit marked lapses.' It is understood the June-August prediction is based on a comparative study of other party elders given intensive care before their deaths.
Mao Zedong, another Parkinson's disease victim, died in 1976, one or two months after showing similar symptoms.
But the chairman became senile about two years before his death, while Mr Deng retained most of his faculties until the second half of last year.
Marshal Ye Jianying died in 1986, four months after exhibiting similar symptoms.
'The medical team realises that a man in such a delicate state of health as Mr Deng could go any minute,' the source said. 'However, given the advances in medical technology since 1986, the medical team seems confident they can out-perform the marshal's.'