How long can people live like this?

And? Are we too important to have "burdens" as part of natural life processes? Are you suggesting that burdens and inconvenience is unacceptable to us so ...what is your solution? Not coping mechanisms, support or realistic expectations? Only extinction will suffice so we, who are younger and whilst we are younger, are comfortable?

People living too long in poor health can become a significant burden on their families.

But maybe they say these things about wishing to die or feeling like a burden because people, the very people they trust and loved their whole lives, make them FEEL like they're a burden. You know, we'll all be old one day, if we're lucky. Wouldn't it be nice to think that people would celebrate that as an achievement instead of sitting around waiting for us to die because of how that makes them feel. We sure pretend the West is the bastion of compassion and morality and then I see all of these posts about how old people just need to hurry up and die because they're a "burden" and "unhappy". Do they have to skip around like Dick Van Dyke, tap dancing in the rain, to be acceptable in their old age to others?

I’ve known quite a few nonagenarians. Only one was active and happy. The rest were literally waiting to die, for years, and were not happy about it.

I never want to hit that point.

Of course, but when life is a burden? When there ceases to be any enjoyment?

It is tragic. My DMIL was lovely but absolutely hated the last four or five years of her life. She was always in discomfort and often in pain from arthritis, and had asked me to take her to Dignitas when she had had enough, but then developed vascular dementia after a heart attack, and could not make that choice. She self-funded four years in care homes and was desperately miserable. It was awful for everyone who loved her.

They deserve to live their lives out just because the thought (or cost) of their death is upsetting to others.

Yes. No one wants to say this. Both parents funded their own care and clearly others who weren’t getting the same funding from local authorities. Someone is making an awful lot of money out of all of this and effectively bankrupting the country.

I think these elderly people are going to bankrupt the country. I don’t mean to upset anyone but it should be quality of life rather than quantity.

Yes, I have a friend who has been barely alive for nine years now. She’s immobile, doubly incontinent, can’t speak, rarely opens her eyes, eats puréed foods. It’s intolerable for her family and it really shouldn’t be happening.

both parents had respect forms but hospitals and doctors will often throw everything at these elderly people because they don’t want to be accused of ignoring them.

So we just plod on.

Yes. Mum lived to 91. Her last few years weren’t great. She wanted to die and her last words at the care home to the nursing staff was please just let me go, I want to die.

We seem to celebrate long lives but in the vast majority of cases it’s either families members normally women propping up these very elderly people or them just living from day to day.

It’s truly awful and I think we need a robust discussion about assisted dying yet it’s been voted down again and unlikely to come back. Shame on the people who voted against it. They clearly have never experienced an elderly relative.

I think that when you're at that stage where extremely few external physical demands are placed on the body beyond new infection, it really is a case of continuing to exist until that last infection occurs

Do they have respect forms in place? Have conversations been had around refusing antibiotics and hospital transfers in the event of a new infection? Are they refusing annual vaccinations?