To think this is the most awful thing to say to a parent

Ah ok thank you for explaining. It's a big worry for me. I mean I think I may well pass on from something else cause of my health but I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I’ve made my decision while I’m of sound mind. Any subsequent decision when I’m not of sound mind doesn’t count. Like making a will, no solicitor would allow me to change my will if my mind was unsound.

I wondered this. I think if you’ve lost capacity and the advance directive still stands, you’re pretty much stuffed !!

What if you change your mind?

This! Totally agree with the sentiment!

It is very hard looking after anyone with dementia. I mourn the person still alive that I have lost. There are two issues here. Firstly demwntia care is very poor. We get limited support and getting medicine recalibrated is really hard . So we risk making decisions based on poor care. Second I am not convinced that family could ever decide on the wishes of someone impaired by dementia. I do not think it is for any relative ti decide a life is worthless.

100% agree with everything you say.

You can say you refuse all treatment for any condition in the event of a dementia diagnosis. It’s called an advance directive that you have attached to your medical notes. It’s the reason I refuse to have the pneumonia vaccine which confers lifelong immunity.

I think one of the Unforgotten had this as well; a group of people doing each other’s murders. The one with Rosie Cavallero as a nurse. It was excellent. Actually, come to think of it, it may have been just one person and they all had something against him, like murder on the orient express. Gah, I can’t remember. But it was very good.

What the absolute fuck? I hope she inherits nothing and that someone puts her out of THEIR misery when she gets dementia.

DF always said he’d top himself, after seeing his own DM get worse and worse and end up in a dementia care home. Unfortunately he lost himself very quickly, he didn’t know he was suffering from dementia. He’s been in a dementia care home for 4 years, he tries to escape several times a day because he doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t know where he is, can’t string a sentence together or shower himself, he just knows he doesn’t want to be there. .it’s ver sad.

Are they poisonous enough? I guess I need to do research. I’ve always liked having solutions, problem solving. I guess this is an ultimate one.

Me and my brother tell our parents they'll be off to Switzerland before we care for them. It's a joke, we obviously would look after them. However, our parents are currently looking after their parents, and it's bloody hard work. My mum always says she wants me to smother her if she gets like that. Clearly, I wouldn't. But I hope euthanasia is legal in this country when I'm old, as I'd absolutely take that option over putting my kids through the stress and heartache of looking after me.

I get that it's not a nice thing to hear someone say, but some families use dark humour to communicate in serious times. Very few people would genuinely off their parents at the first chance!

Interesting on the news re Jersey today, but you have to have lived there for a year (how?) to use their assisted dying scheme. Isle of Man heading that way too. You’d put an animal out of its misery. I find it totally inhumane to allow a person to deteriorate in this way. I’ve told my Dh to put me out on a mountain in minus temperatures and a bottle of vodka. He recently investigated someone jumping off the cliff at Beachy Head where apparently there are priests on patrol trying to persuade people not to jump!

Yeah. It's really tricky. And I was wondering if you could have a legal document saying 'if/when I get dementia I wish to assisted die'. And apparently you can't even really do that?

She's smart. If I get that diagnosis I'm taking care of business and then harvesting all the poisonous plants I've been growing to make a tea to die for.

Yeah it would have to be a years ago you signed this. If you still feel the same here is the tablet. If you don’t off you go.

I guess.

I know that’s a very over simplified way of looking at it mind.

@Tableforjoan " wish there was a system where we could quite clearly willingly sign up to say if we got such diagnoses we could be put out of our misery as it’s no life."

I totally agree, that would be ideal BUT imagine the scene:

• person signs up to system saying "yes please do away with me should i get dementia"
• dementia happens, even years and years later, and because of the demetia the person is not who they were and is therefore screaming they want to live while they are carted off to be euthanised because their name was on that system.

We could not , understandably, stomach it.

What do we do with people who dint want to die but are given no other choice?
Because when you don’t deliver the care people need (like palliative or hospice care) then that’s the only choice left.

Seriously look at what’s happening in Canada.
When you need painkillers but you can’t have them because <insert costs, need to see specialist in 2 years time etc…> but you can’t have have AD/MAID the next day (yep it’s that easy there) then that’s what people do.

And, as the proponents of AD bill said themselves, it’s cheaper right?

I was clearly naive. People can be so bloody cruel. It's been a real eye opener. 🙁

Of course they will.

Not the least because once the idea that being a burden (something the AD bill saw as a good reason further AD) is good enough to put pressure in people, there will be a huge pressure on people. Socially and by individuals
Reinforced by a society that is becoming more and more individualistic

Not good for the other passengers as I pointed out above.

Nope not ok to say.
And not just about Alzheimer’s either.

But that exactly what the supporters of Assisted Dying want to see. And very often underneath the ‘it was so hard to see them dying like that’ you have the feeling this woman expressed bluntly.

One reason why I’m against AD btw. Because where do you stop if the limit is ‘being a burden’?

Photo albums were something that helped with my mum - she had vascular dementia. Try combining it with music. I knew what mum liked and what pieces of music had special significance - it seemed to trigger certain fragments of memory. It didn’t work all the time, but some days were better than others in terms of cognition.

Fair play that's a really good idea. I'm noting that one down for the future.