Why do we (as a society) do this?

Condolences to @Zoopet
I suggest within a month you try to do something completely different to get the stress or grief out of your body. I wish I had when my mother passed away.
Thanks for opening a thread on this back in January, it's been helpful to get people to chip in with their comments.

Not sure about suicide. What happens if you botch it and cause lasting injury to yourself on top of the dementia?

Taking a cold mechanistic view, murder is wrong, but so is torturing hundreds of thousands of people by keeping them alive with dementia against their will.

@BerthaLovelock completely agree, things have advanced so much medically, we need a major overhaul. Keeping people alive is great if they have quality of life but medicating end stage dementia patients is pointless to me and cruel, just let them go with dignity.

My mums best friend a very vivacious and lovely lady in her late 70's died very suddenly of a stroke a few years ago. Her family were of course devastated but for me this would have been preferable to seeing my mum in her living nightmare currently.

Hereditary major dementia in my family. I'm not worried because I have carefully thought out plans for if/when I get that diagnosis. And I'm not the slightest bit suicidal - I'm very much enjoying my life right now. Which is precisely why it will NOT be ending the way my grandmother's did. I've seen it. Won't be me. Anyone who doesn't understand this has never seen the very end stages of Parkinson's with major dementia. I'm sure people on this thread have, so I won't elaborate to say it was as bad as those conditions can get before she finally died.

I went to a funeral this week, a relatively middle aged woman, the grief was palpable, it was a unexpected and very quick death.

I'll take this route, even if it's today

Sorry for your loss @Zoopet I’ve just seen you mum passed away yesterday.

I thoroughly agree. DNR seems only to apply to heart attacks, which require brutal intervention (breaking ribs etc). Pneumonia and so on can be treated, and so they are. Mil - demented to the point of no cognition at all, doubly incontinent, bed bound and simply wailing/mumbling, was sent to hospital three times for pneumonia. It was not only pointless but downright cruel.

I believe the Hippocratic oath is no longer fit for purpose due to medical advances. Modern drugs can prolong life far in excess of what is humane.

Surely there could be something in writing to say that if you reach the final stages of dementia you would be happy to be euthanized ?? I watch the awfulness and the misery and distress at my mums care home and think why are we allowing this to continue ??

It doesn’t have to be significant to give us pause. Similar to how sending innocent people to be hung when we had the death penalty there wasn’t a “significant” number of them but even the death of a few innocents was enough to abolish capital punishment.

Euthanising a person under duress/without their consent is essentially murder. There was a case of a woman in the Netherlands whose family decided to euthanise her. The woman had agreed in principle a few years that she might want euthanasia “when the time is right” but when asked directly in the lead up had said “not yet” or “I don’t want to die”. They went ahead with the euthanasia anyway and did not inform her, they drugged her tea without her knowledge. It didn’t put her fully to sleep and when they went to give her the injection, she kicked the doctor and started to struggle. The family members had to physically hold her down in order for the doctor to give the lethal injection. The courts cleared everyone of murder, but that case is very disturbing.

I'm planning on suicide. Though it will be very difficult as you can be unaware that your faculties are failing. Pills, cut wrists. Whatever.

So sorry you are going through this, I agree, if you owned a pet and they were this poorly with no expectation of recovery, you would be facing cruelty charges. But if you are human, you just have to get on with it, how can that be right?

I was having this discussion with the lovely deputy care home manager at my darling mums care home last night on how awful it is to keep people alive when there is zero chance of recovery. Having watched my lovely mum having her nappy changed last night and trying to feed her when all she wanted to do was sleep was utterly heartbreaking. It's inhumane, cruel and undignified. I just want her to be at peace she's had enough. Something needs to change.

@Zoopet condolences for your loss although you are right she is at peace now. I hope you have family and friends around you IRL. You will feel numb for a bit. It’s a shock even if you were expecting it. Just let yourself feel whatever you are feeling and don’t be surprised or feel guilty if you feel a little bit of relief that it’s now over. In time you’ll be able to remember more than just the memories of her illness but it can take a while. Sending virtual hugs from someone who has been through similar 💐

My MIL has been in a care home for over eight years. She went in aged 90. All of it in a specialist dementia section of the home. She is now bed bound, non verbal and incontinent. She's been in that state for two or three years.

When we visit they say she's doing very well. Such rubbish. She has no life.

DH says to me that they look after her too well. She is in paracetamol and vit D only. We persuaded the Dr to discontinue the statins. She didn't catch Covid.

Just had a very upsetting visit to mum, she was being moreorless pulled down the corridor by two carers so I could see her in her room. She could barely walk and looked terrified. I wish with all my heart she could be at peace.

I suspect that those countries would have an incredible system in place. Well that’s what I learnt about how it works in Switzerland. I know that no system is fool proof but it really was incredibly difficult to get the final agreement to go ahead with the procedure. Either way it’s an awful situation to be in. I really feel for you.

I cared for my mother in law, with help, who had Parkinsons, so she was able to stay in her own home. It was very sad but I had great respect for how she made the most of what was left of her life, when her world became smaller.

Sorry, 'conversation about death' I meant.

I agree with almost everyone here, but what strikes me as mad is that in some cases it's clear care home residents are just left to live for an eternity even when in pain, distress and so on, even significant dementia, while others it is clear get 'fast-tracked for the morgue' and die unnecessarily early to the consternation of families. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

When officials talk about a 'contestation about death' what they mean is, I think, look it's costing way too much to keep someone alive for the hell of it. It's like they're hoping we start the awkward conversation first - a classic State trick, like holding out on lockdown until the papers, Opposition, health officials and unions are screaming for it, so it doesn't seem arbitrarily imposed - so we have stories of relatives broaching the subject of euthanasia themselves. It almost seems deliberate to ensure that happens, while some families are demonised for taking relatives to Dignitas, or the narrative framed that they'll be pressurising Grandad into making the trip into the great yonder. In my experience it's misdirection - I found care homes - not all, but more than one I experienced - are just killing them off with State approval. This is in Surrey - the Conservative-led flagship Council. Perhaps that's how they keep taxes down.

I've worked in a care home for many years now and I am fully for euthanasia.

I would hope in 40+ years time when I am elderly this is an option.

I would hate to be in that situation. Many don't have any quality of life and just exist. So I try my hardest to make their last few months/ years as comfortable and fun (if possible) as I can.

Some notice at times others don't even know I'm there. It's such a shame

My dad is in the last stages of cancer. He has is in pain, doubly incontinent, bed bound and totally doolally for months. In rare moments of lucidity he begs to be allowed to die. My brother and mother goad him into eating and drinking even when he doesn't want to. I hope each time they call me it is to day he has died just so he is no longer in such distress.

@SquirrelG I see this as about different combinations.

Content/stable and no mental capacity: assisted dying never likely to be appropriate.

Sudden medical deterioration and no capacity, but previously expressed wishes not to prolong life: why do HCPs automatically start antibiotics and IV fluids? For what?