I think it was just an excuse so that we wouldn't bother searching for Satoshi or the person behind the name.
What if Satoshi is still around and hiding with another pseudonym ?
What do you think these other things could be?
I generally assume he was moving on to battle an illness, and that he lost the battle and died.
And this could also be true and could be the reason why Satoshi couldn't comeback to the community.
It has been 10 years now many things could happen maybe before Satoshi even begin creating Bitcoin the person is already sick.