How long can people live like this?

When DM moved from hospital to CH I noticed that CH beds didnt have side rails where hospital beds did. I asked about this and was told that no side rails was safer.

At night, beds of falls risk residents are lowered to the floor. DM has foam crash mats next to the bed.

Are you suggesting that the care homes speed up deaths based on when the money stops?

Utter nonsense!

You stated that I felt like I should be able to.take my mothers life! My mother isn't away with the fairies, she's fully there but mentally ill so how can I take her life without it being murder!
I'm saying let the people that want to go, go and make it easier for them to legally do it.

I didn’t accuse you of wanting to kill your mother. You’re in a thread about letting people die and assisted dying though.

Are you actually accusing me of wanting to kill my own mother? I've said nothing of the sort! I've said that she is permanently unhappy and suicidal and if she wants to end it, it's her business! I'm not there to stop her or watch over her if she wanted to take all her tablets! My argument was against people stating that elderly parents are all happy sweet people that we should devote ourselves to! I am stating that some of these people are miserable and unhappy and don't want to be here! Some of them are so abusive and horrible that they don't deserve to have that devotion from kids either! Why the hell are you accusing me of wanting to murder my mother! I actually stated that I refused to sign a DNR for her because if she topped herself it would make me look like I was involved because I stand to benefit from her will! Why would you slander me like that! That's awful accusation to make!

As awful as this is, it’s not assisted dying if it’s suicide. Are you saying you should be able to make
the decision to end your mothers life? Because no matter how bad her mental health issues are, you shouldn’t be able to make that decision.

So last night family member was admitted to hospital for the sixth time in ten weeks. They go in, they are treated, discharged, readmitted within a week for same problem. there is an operation that could sort the problem but family member is too frail and wouldn’t survive the anaesthetic. They are in pain, confused and distressed. The rest of the family are insistent that there’s hope and we shouldn’t give up on them. The doctors have mentioned palliative care once but this wasn’t accepted by family. So here we are again with them having invasive treatment that will only prolong the inevitable. We are no longer prolonging their life, we are prolonging their death. Heartbreaking

Or perhaps have someone sitting next to Mum during her hospital
stays (24 hours) making sure she doesn’t start to climb out of bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night

Quite. These people spouting off about how easy it is to manage UTI’s, numerous falls. Could you please tell us how to stop our elderly people falling?

Maybe they just need to watch where they are going!

My Mum broke her arm whilst in hospital, recovering from a broken hip - she has UTIs back to back - she has seen so many urologists - they have no answers for her - we even took her to a urologist in Harley St. She lives in a care home now - a good one and is currently in hospital with another UTI - if only preventing falls and UTIs were as simple as your experience informs you.

Sounds more sensible over there

we have had a relative die in Ireland because the hospital asked whether they could withdraw antibiotics as they don’t treat elderly people with repeated courses of antibiotics in hospital. By this stage she was immobile and already had a very poor quality of life. Maybe I’ll have to spend my last few years in Ireland.

Realistically this is most likely the result of modern medicine and had they lived at pretty much any other time in history they would have likely passed away years ago.
They will likely be vaccinated against pneumonia, rsv, flu etc, given antibiotics whenever they have an infection and be on a plethora of preventative medications.

In contrast, my great grandmother who was late 80s and had mild dementia but had otherwise been reasonably healthy and fit until this point got pneumonia 50 years ago and the family GP came out to see her and told them just to make her comfortable. She died peacefully at home a few days later.
Nowadays she would have taken into hospital and given antibiotics and likely lingered with a decreasing quality of life for a number of years.

It comes back to the debate of quantity versus quality of life.

This is how I feel. Watching my DM's decline is awful. My DGM had dementia, my DM has it. So there is a good chance I will get it. I will do what I can to keep it short.

I am doing the same - no heroics, I do not want to destroy my kid’s lives by hanging on for years and it’s not about the money. It’s about giving them the freedom to live their lives without me being a burden.

Same!
I have LPAs set up for my DC to administer, but didn’t know until today (thanks to this thread!) about Advanced Directives and the comfort meds instead of antibiotics.
Will definitely instruct not to have the vaccinations is that is possible.

I am working my way through my life admin.

Wills are in place. Currently changing the way that our home is owned so that DH and I will each have a pot of money to pay for care.

Next will be POAs.

Final piece will be Advanced Directives - these are legally binding if properly witnessed so need to get the wording right.

I would quietly suggest that someone having fall after fall, UTI after UTI, is not being well cared for.

Like many people on the final stretch of life, my mum improved no end after admission to a nursing home. She got the correct meds at the right times every day; she ate and drank sufficiently well on a regular schedule; she was taken to the loo as soon as she needed it; she rested well, was perfectly clean and was lavished with kindness.

We agreed we should've done this six months earlier, so she would have had longer to enjoy the benefits instead of muddling miserably through at home. She had carers and visits from us, but the difference in quality was glaring once we saw how well the home worked.

We should be allowed to judge it for ourself at the very least.

Why aren't I legally allowed to say - help me to go now. It's barbaric to force people to go on living when they don't want to

When I was a teenager my mum chased me out of the house holding a knife, I found in recent years she once held a knife to my brother when he was younger. The problem is that I have found out in recent times that benzodiazapines can react badly with some mental illness and make them more violent!

No, this didn’t happen. If you read the post you’re referring to, her granny asked the family to do this a few years before she actually died. The poster was using it to demonstrate her granny’s own approach to not wanting to die a long drawn out death with lots of medical intervention. Both granny and family were probably fully aware that her request was never going to happen.

There are two conversations on this thread that I think are getting mixed up. Extending life through the use of life-prolonging (and preventative) medications is one thing and contributory to the issues raised in the OP.

Assisted dying is not, and was never proposed, as the answer to this. AD was designed to be offered to patients with a clear terminal prognosis, which in effect means cancer, some progressive neurological diseases and maybe end stage organ failure (heart, lung or liver). It was designed to be very limited and any expansion to those with dementia, frailty or psychiatric illness would (quite rightly) have opened accusations of a slippery slope and been extremely concerning. I think the throwing out of the Bill was absolutely the right outcome and I don't think it is possible to design a good AD Bill.

But I completely agree about the mess that we have enabled with modern healthcare and completely unreasonable expectations of everything being fixable or living to 90 completely well. And these conversations (about the type of old age we want or are prepared to accept) need to happen early. Kathryn Mannix's book 'With the End in Mind' and Lucy Pollock's book "The Book about getting older" are both excellent starting points. Or Atul Gawande's book.

One of the main reason that doctors want to keep treating is concern about litigation and expectations of families. And often those expectations go unchallenged by the same doctors, through lack of time, or lack of confidence. Allowing a good, timely and comfortable death requires careful conversations and this takes time and relationships, sadly in short supply. There is also a huge societal conversation to have about what we can afford as society. There is an opportunity cost to prolonging or enabling extreme frail old age.

But ask any doctor about whether they want resuscitation, or extensive unending treatment, and the answer is almost invariably no. I know that I would very carefully weight up any cancer treatments (I am in my 50s) and have no plans to have screening (other than bowel, which it IS worth catching early) or take preventative medications like statins. But that is my choice for me only and I do not know who in power will ever have the guts to start a conversation at a societal level.

I would do an advanced directive.

I don’t personally believe in assisted dying. However, my own elderly relative has frequent falls, and broken bones, and each time they visit A&E they’re given all sorts of scans and tests to check for all sorts of things. When you’re constantly having scans and blood tests, any little thing is caught early.
it’s a bit like British Gas telling you they can keep your Worcester Bosch boiler going forever. Yes they can, if you’re willing to service it regularly and spend whatever is necessary endlessly replacing parts, then yes, you can keep it going forever.