Anyone else slightly frightened of being elderly and losing quality of life

[Donewithit888]

I work part time in care, and whilst it's very rewarding it depresses me slightly.

A large number of our clients are essentially existing rather than living, people who've had strokes and are now bedbound, no pastimes other than watching TV day in day out. Having to be hoisted in the air several times a day just to use the toilet or get changed.
Incontinent, no awareness of what's going on in their surroundings.

Houses that are absolutely filthy and filled with clutter as they aren't physically capable of cleaning them and don't have local help. Living in one room permanently, rarely seeing the outside world.

Asking your name for the umpteenth time as short term memory issues.
No longer able to feed themselves in some cases.

Being looked after by certain 'carers' who couldn't care less and would rather be anywhere else.

Every time I finish my shifts I pretty much pray to myself that I don't end up that way, but I'm sure the service users also felt the same way when they were younger and in better health.
Just seems to be a bit of a lottery really, we can live healthy lifestyles and look after ourselves but nothing is guaranteed.
Not really sure how you stop thinking like this?

The people you care for are the minority who need a high level of care. Most older people manage well and many are active and alert well into the eighties and even nineties. I knew one guy living with minimal family support on his own at 102!

It's not like we get any choice in the way things go anyway. Just have to wait and see while remembering to live each day well and to our best.

Yes I'm terrified of getting dementia . My gran , aunt and mum have it and it feels inevitable.
Watching 24 hours in a and e it is certainly very common now . There must be a reason for it , I hope they find that and a medication to stop progression properly asap ! 🙏

@gunnersgold
Dementia is everywhere nowadays.
My Gran, Mum, 2 Aunts and an uncle so that's a parent and 4 siblings all had dementia.

My granny and her four sisters had dementia in the 1960s. Nothing new, just more people living longer.

@Twiglets1

It’s scary and when I look at my in laws now they have no kind of life due to various health issues, though they are relatively lucky in that they are still in their own home and don’t have dementia. My dad is miserable being in his 80s because he had a very active and exciting life, now he is bored.

My mum died at 76 and I was raging for a while at the unfairness of her dying “young” but in some ways it was a blessing because she never had to suffer the indignities and restrictions of real old age. If Euthanasia is a option, I would probably choose it for myself at a certain point rather than go into a home, say.

I have had a similar experience. My very fit and healthy dad who was never ill died very suddenly in his late seventies. I honestly thought he would live to see his hundredth birthday. I am now glad he got to live his life to the full right up to the moment of his death. I’m hoping I go the same way.

Yes I don't think dementia is anything new. But more people have it now as the medical diagnoses that would have killed them years ago are now successfully treated.

My dad had a mini stroke 13 years ago. He had no side effects from that but he was tested thoroughly and found to need a pacemaker plus drugs for atrial fibrillation and heart failure. 3 years ago he had a new and more advanced pacemaker fitted as his heart failure was worsening and he had dreadfully swollen legs. The new pacemaker and a revamped drugs regime keep him relatively healthy but he's still ageing. Now he has dementia and age related macular degeneration and v little energy.

His cardiologist would call him a success story but is he now living or existing?

I remember my mum telling me if I ever came into her house and found her dead in bed not to be upset????
My mum was in her early 70s when she died after living in a care home for 6 years with dementia.

What she said was true I would rather pass away peacefully in my own bed than living for several more years in a living hell.

I wonder what will happen to the care system with rising energy costs. Central heating on even during the summer, washing machines and tumble dryers on constantly. There will only be so much extra the self-funders will be able to stump up; certainly councils will not be able to match the rising costs. Something has gone terribly wrong with the human race when we now have some countries in the world that sell more nappies for the elderly than for babies. The cost (and not just financial) is going to fall increasingly on a smaller pool of people, yet still we fail to have any sensibe conversations around euthanasia in this country.

[quote Justilou1]@PiperPosey - I was diagnosed about 18m ago. I’ll be 50 this year. Explains my over-familiarity with orthopaedic surgeons since a young age, and all the myriad other symptoms, etc. My three kids all have differing symptoms but so far their hearts are all good. (Thank goodness!) Ironically, I am studying nursing and was dx’ed by my hand surgeon after I had been doing CPR on one of those creepy, limbless dummies and the pea-sized ganglion that had been on the side of my wrist decided to migrate to the back of it and grow to the size of a duck egg. When I was looking at the ganglion, my lecturer noticed that my thumb was hanging loosely in space also. I have had four hand surgeries since. Next is cardiac ablative surgery to help with arrhythmias, then aortic valve replacement. Seems hospitals are a theme.[/quote]
Good to hear that the kids' hearts are good so far.
Wow.. hand surgeries..
Next is cardiac ablative surgery to help with arrhythmias, then aortic valve replacement. I'm sorry.. Good Luck...

My daughter is down to teaching online classes now. Which she is thrilled about ( same money) She is just too fatigued to walk through the University and Hospital to teach.

They both are on tons of medication. And my daughter is scheduled this month for surgery.. Never ending... sigh...

@CHIRIBAYA

I wonder what will happen to the care system with rising energy costs. Central heating on even during the summer, washing machines and tumble dryers on constantly. There will only be so much extra the self-funders will be able to stump up; certainly councils will not be able to match the rising costs. Something has gone terribly wrong with the human race when we now have some countries in the world that sell more nappies for the elderly than for babies. The cost (and not just financial) is going to fall increasingly on a smaller pool of people, yet still we fail to have any sensibe conversations around euthanasia in this country.

Or even of whether it's actually sensible to administer things like flu vaccines and antibiotics after a certain point of faculty loss, things that try and prevent what are actually some of the quicker deaths available to humans. Not necessarily euthanasia, but deciding not to administer death delaying interventions when it isn't clear the person will benefit. I saw this for far too long with my own loved one, who would not have approved had she any idea what was happening.

I know we can have advance directives dealing with this sort of thing but the reality is most people won't, just like the majority don't have wills either. Because people are inherently crap at this kind of thing. So the question is whether the default needs to change.

I have no desire to live long enough to find out

As I'm getting to an age where this is not as far on the horizon as I would like. As a volunteer visitor in a care home I'm determined that I will never end up in one even if that means I have to end my own life whilst I am still capable.

I am seriously considering an ADRT in case I am suddenly incapacitated which will protect me from "life saving" interventions that my loved ones know I do not want.

I’ve done everything I can (so far) to prevent what you describe.
I have an advance statement, DNR, dos not treat for any terminal condition. Can’t remember everything else in it. I had help from this organisation beta.compassionindying.org.uk/
I have a chronic pain condition ( not terminal, probably not degenerative) No doctor has bothered helping me at all (2 managed to make matters worse) so why would I want to prolong a life of pain?
If there’s ever the opportunity to add in “ put me down” ( like pets) I’d add that in.

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER yes I see it every day and usually in the case of the person with dementia it’s the family who want to keep them alive, for example, always wanting antibiotics for pneumonia or utis when realistically it would be kinder for nature to take its course. Pneumonia wasn’t called the old man’s friend for nothing[/quote]
Exactly. I heard of someone of over 90 with dementia, who was given a pacemaker. When they’d asked what would happen if the person didn’t have it, they were told that they would very likely drift away quite peacefully in their sleep.
But they still chose for their relative to have it.

IMO ‘striving to keep alive’ can verge on cruelty.

Can I just say I’ve really enjoyed the sensible discussion around this on here, in my line of work it really opens your eyes to the fact that people cannot accept death as part of life, or worse families cannot even when their relative repeatedly states they want to be left to die

@Someonemustknowtheanswer

Start stashing pills once you begin going downhill. A lot of nurses have said that to me for their own plans.

Good plan unless you get dementia. Once past the very early stages people very often refuse to believe that there’s anything wrong with them, for the simple reason that they can’t remember at any given moment, that they can’t remember anything. (If that makes sense.)

My mother often used to say she’d take an overdose if she ‘got like that’ but by the time she did, ‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’

She still genuinely believed that - it wasn’t a case of ‘in denial’ - when she could no longer even make herself a cup of tea.

Yeah my mum can't dress herself, wash herself, feed herself or take her meds but she also thinks that there's nothing wrong with her

My mum died of dementia last week. I've not shed a tear for her. I'm so relieved she has been liberated from the shell her poor little body had become. If I could have given her an overdose of morphine a year ago I would willingly have done rather than seeing her go through her final months.

I'm hoping that in the next few decades, that medical providers and governments come to their senses and legalise euthanasia.

Yes - it didn’t bother me before but it does now! Both my parents died before I was 40 - dad had cancer and mum died very suddenly. Now my MIL is getting on and we are ‘doing things’ almost every day - and she is still very sharp and independent, but things still need done! She is lucky because we live very close by.

I don’t have much family and we have one child. Poor old DH - what will happen when he is alone (he only has one relative in the U.K.) and I’m bound to snuff it before him?

I work in dementia services delivering activities from early stage and the later stages where people are bed bound with no capacity. There is no quality of life... waiting for the disease to progress or when bed bound.
Being faced with it every day I start to worry when I find myself forgetting a word.
Increasingly we are getting people from mid fifties onwards. It must be a living nightmare for them seeing others at a more advanced state and seeing what's to come.

This is such a sensible discussion to have. People are weird in RL, I told a friend what one of my funeral tunes was and she was aghast, asked why would I be thinking that now and not in 20 years time. My dad died when I was mid 30's whereas she has both parents alive, she presumably assumes she will live as long as them but what an assumption!

@Copenhagenoffice thankfully working in nursing we can all have a laugh about things like that, I told my colleagues they would play fairytale of New York at my funeral because it’s my favourite christmas song and I love christmas song!

I worry about this a lot. I have several very painful conditions that I need to manage carefully in order to not be in really severe pain. Once I can't manage there is no way a carer would be willing or able to give the required level of care. The thought of just how dreadful that would be scares me. My extensive experience of care homes means that I know it would be horrendous to be in one. Just one example: I need eye drops every 2 hours, sometimes more. I wake up at least 3 times at night to put them in. if I don't, my eyes feel as if they are full of sand. Nobody is going to do that for me. So I would be in pain and would lose my sight.