To think that people living longer is making quality of life for everyone worse?

[Futurascope]

Possibly controversial…,

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-14/one-in-three-councils-not-confident-they-can-provide-basic-adult-social-care

“The fears about meeting the legal requirements come despite eight out of 10 councils forecasting having to cut spending on other community services such as parks, libraries and leisure centres to try to protect funding”.

So - libraries, leisure centres, parks, all vital for young children, families and others - being closed because the elderly desperately need social care.

As awful as it is for us all individually to lose somebody that we love….. is curing every disease, and having us all live to 100 really a good thing if it is at the expense of quality of life for the rest of society?

Except you can't, if you were serious. The rules have changed and I think you have to be a Swiss resident for a number of years. You can't put a value on life. You get to choose, if you have capacity but the minute you lose capacity you don't get to chose at all.
We need to get rid of this asset stripping government and get social care properly funded.

Treating and preventing acute disease in someone already living with illness or disability isn't just about saving their life though, is it? It might be about them surviving with, or without, additional impairment and care needs. It's a pragmatic rule of thumb that straightforward emergency treatment should always be given, unless the patient refuses it.

Are the majority saying kill the elderly?

I don’t think the op is suggesting that

Is that correct on spend I thought it was more related to age than that

Regardless diabetes and obesity do cost, it looks like Wegovy etc will be used more often given recent trials

I also worth remembering that things like flu, covid and infections arent actually guaranteed to finish you off, even pneumonia known as old mans friend isnt 100% you will die if untreated. Therfore they arent always treated to prolong life. The treatment or prevention is about making you more comfortable at the time and preventing a whole heap other things to make you even more uncomfortable longer term when you survive anyway.

Absolutely right. It wouldn't be long before assisted dying became compulsory for the aged. Then it would spread to other groups,
such as the disabled or mentally ill people. Naxi Germany's euthanasia programme even killed off dyslexic people and mothers with post natal depression. They were 'Useless mouths' according to Nazi doctrine.
Everything to do with eliminating frailty could so easily spin out of control in a society that valued survival of the fittest.

Quite right OP. As an older person my right to life and to be in the lives of my children and grandchildren is of far less value than your kid's right to go down a water slide at the weekend.

What a nasty, toxic thread. Designating people as drains on society and discussing how to basically rid society of these valueless people.

Regardless diabetes and obesity do cost, it looks like Wegovy etc will be used more often given recent trials

Drill in a little deeper.... no peer reviewed research yet and do we really want to give people a "pill for every ill" pretty much saying eat like a pig and the NHS will have an expensive drug to fix your lifestyle choices?

Both of these diseases can often be fixed by not eating rubbish and a little exercise.

So you're suggesting involuntary euthanasia of people living in long-term care is the solution to improving quality of life for the other members of our society?
Hitler, is that you?

@Allthesea DS had a mixture of ABA, SCERTS and speech and language therapy. He should also have had occupational therapy but he was turned down by the council (he really needed it - age 12 he still can’t tie his own shoe laces - but they just don’t have the funds) and there was only so much we could self fund. Funding for children with autism is woeful. I would 100% prioritise funding for children over social care for the elderly; those who insist there is enough money for everyone “if only Shell paid more tax” don’t understand how it works, I’m afraid.

The voting is really worrying, speaking as a 62 year old (still working and paying tax and NI BTW).

I query all these stories about people with dementia and other diseases saved from pneumonia through aggressive treatment.
Nearly everyone in that situation has a DNR and do not treat pneumonia. If they do not then that means either your relative has enough capacity to consent to treatment and is saying they want treatment, or relatives are saying they want the treatment.
My FIL was at home with a carer visiting for 2 years and had consented to no aggressive treatment at all. He knew he was dying and was at peace with that. But he did not want to be killed off prematurely.

And OP people do not normally live to a 100. The median age women currently die is 82 years old. So are you proposing non treatment of everyone over 70? Over 75?

@Elvisthedonkey You do know social care budget funds disabled adults and elderly people? A cut in that means a cut to care for autistic adults who can not live independently. Do not think your son will be excluded from this.
And what do you propose we do with people who need social care if we get rid of the budget? Leave people to die of starvation in their own faeces?

@shypoet That’s a fair point to make.

It really isn't hard to say "after 75 you can't expect significant intervention". I am always astounded to hear of people who feel a 90 something relative should have been given more care. There simply isn't enough resource to go around an old population. We're not talking about this for fun!

I have a friend aged just over 80 who walked several miles a day, mostly running errands for other elderly people. She had a fall and broke her hip. While she was recovering she needed carers. Now she is walking again and back to running errands, albeit more slowly and with a walking frame.
But obviously she should just have been euthanised when she had the fall, or at the very least denied treatment 🙄

There is a movement in which people decide to stop doing medical tests at 75 or 80

They want to die without prolonging life.

I have watched quite a few people in their 80s suffer terribly with a plethora of ailments.

I’m more of an overdose plus plastic bag over the head type as I doubt I’ll be able to afford dignitas.

I would prefer if there were voluntary euthanasia but others disagree so sufferers continue to suffer and endure pain so the ‘voters against’ can feel good about themselves.

When AI is used more and more to triage every aspect of the value of human life according to algorithms designed by humans to protect "resources" from the many and for the few, will everyone be happy? I mean, computer says no, and are completely unbiased.

Just how content will you be with resource based rationalisation when you fall into the "unworthy group" for some minor infraction?

My Gran is 91. Has had one functioning kidney since the 1960s and a ileostomy since the 1980s.

She lives alone but currently has her DC meeting her needs for shopping etc but the time is rapidly approaching that she'll need additional care.

She's not ill, she's not dying, she's just really old. No-one is keeping her alive but her. She's supposed to take medications but doesn't She's got a 95 year old sister still alive and her elder sister died aged 99 in 2020 after surviving covid.

My Gran is one of many. Very, very old and needs or will need some social care but isn't ill or being kept alive.

But the rich can still presumably find a way to pay for it privately though? What kind of society would that create? I think this whole issue is like opening Pandora's box.

I wouldn't be at all surprised, given current Dystopian rhetoric and slow withdrawal of health and social care across the board, if we don't see an uptick in suicide and family annihilation due to lack of hope and any sense of future. It could be already happening but not being reported.

Will there be a shift from the opinion that those actions are due to a diseased mi and, to a rationalisation that it's the right thing to protect resources? I mean, if you think past the protection of millionaire's bank balances this could be where we're heading.

I'm not in favour of prolonging life at all costs. I agreed with HCPs to pull the plug on the live of my life just over two years ago after brain bleeds due to undiagnosed cancer that left him quadriplegic and in a coma that there was no hope of recovery from.

But that's not what these hard, pragmatic threads are really about, is it? It's about deciding whether sentient conscious humans with challenges and vulnerabilities should be reduced in number by limiting care at any point. Hide behind the sentiment of preventing suffering if you like but it's more about greed than anything else.

What the hell is wrong with people?

It's also support for the chronically ill (into the bin with them); the mentally ill, including mentally ill children (into the bin), the disabled (bin) and many others. You are asking for a society where only the fully robust are allowed to live and get any support or help. Not a society I want to live in.

I'm a fit and healthy 74-year-old. I work, I pay taxes (as I have all my life), I support my DCs with their children and am just as useful as a thirty-something, thank you. Ask the question again when you approach 70 yourself.

I'm actually a supporter of assisted suicide becasue there are illnesses I don't want to suffer and ways I don't want to die, but any society that writes off the so-called 'unproductive' is not a society any of us should want to live in.

You're more useful than this 30 something. Yet the 'kill them all offers' haven't responded to my posts weirdly

I don't agree. it's more of a broad view. not simplistic. The UK values the individual liberty of the person above the family unit. Care homes have been around for decades, this isn't related to the cost of living. This is wholly down to expectations of how much 30% of your salary will cover.

The UK has always seen the care of the elderly for instance as a problem for the state. This now developing into an existential crisis. 50% of the working population is subsidised by the other half. It's not sustainable.

I know in my family and DP's for instance we've borne the burden of looking after our elderly. we're also making plans for the eventuality of taking care of them in the future. That includes dementia and other complex problems.

At the moment, working age people either have to pay privately or fall out of work because of lack of NHS resources.