To think this is the most awful thing to say to a parent

[Kate8889]

My mom has a husband she's been with for about 12 years, they're in their 60s.

He has a sister and their father recently died after a very difficult few years of Alzheimer's disease (he was physically combative on the daily).

This sister (in front of everyone) told her mom that if a person gets a diagnosis such as Alzheimer's it is the person's responsibility that they don't become a burden on their loved ones and they should end their life. I cannot imagine saying that to anyone but especially my parents.

(A) I’m merely pointing out that many many people say that is what they’d want and then the reality of the situation is quite different and (B) because the premise of the original post is about a certain pressure being applied by families and that scares the hell out of me, and should everyone else too.

You’re not merely pointing out anything. You’re aggressively arguing that people shouldn’t have the right to make the decision that their quality of life has gone and they should be allowed to end it. I totally respect your right not to do it, why can’t you respect my wish to make a decision that affects nobody but me?

Tbf @BIossomtoes you do seem incapable of engaging with any of the difficulties in euthanasia for the mentally compromised. What about those who have no idea what the drinks/injections are? Are they just given them on the basis that it is what they once wanted?

As for your autonomy to die, you are aware that we already have that now? Few people actually need assistance to complete suicide.

I’m not engaging because my concern is about me. It’s an individual decision that other people seem to feel entitled to take away from me. If I do take my own life I want it guaranteed that it will work and not end up being “saved” and worse off than I was before. And I want my nearest and dearest to be able to be with me without the threat of criminalisation hanging over their heads.

You seem to be missing the point. You can sign now and say you want to die but once you have dementia you may say you no longer want to as you no longer understand or remember what it will entail. Or you may not believe you have dementia.

One of my mother's first symptoms was paranoia, she thought her husband was trying to poison her and steal her money, this then moved onto anyone who was close by. Reminding her to kill herself would not have gone down well!

In Belgium patients are held down and euthanised. That’s the only way it can be done.

You can’t call it consent if the person isn’t able to agree that’s what’s going to happen.

Which patients and why? Because that's not what Belgium law states

That looks made up to me. Perhaps you have some evidence because I’d be very interested in seeing it.

Absolutely. And I personally believe someone with dementia changing their mind about something is still valid.

Even if they haven’t got a mind left to change? We don’t allow people lacking capacity to make decisions about their finances or medical care yet the most important decision of all is exempt from this.

It's because it's the most important decision of all that I believe it has to be exempt.

That’s completely illogical. You can’t change your will or manage your own finances when you lose capacity, someone else has to advocate and make decisions for your medical care yet you can over rule a decision made when you had capacity when you’re no longer yourself. Make it make sense.

Your opinion. You're entitled to it. But nothing's going to make me say I think it's fine for us to have a system that means people might have to be forcibly killed sometimes despite literally pleading for their lives.

Reminding her to kill herself would not have gone down well

I hope you don’t mind as it’s obviously a very serious subject but this did make me laugh. I’m also sorry for what you must have gone through.

People have got the right, they just don't have the right to get someone else to do it for them. If you want to do it while you have capacity you can, the days of people being prosecuted for attempting suicide are long gone.

We’re going round in circles. I’ve already responded to that suggestion.

Because the default option should always be NOT to take the life of another human being. If there is any doubt about consent, or the legality or ethics of a particular case, then the euthanasia should not go ahead.

Before dementia, a person might have been horrified by the prospect of ending up in a care home unable to remember their family members’ names and with no more to look forward to than tea and cake, daytime TV, and afternoons of either Chairobics, crafts or a singalong.

But what if the dreaded scenario happens and the person is mostly content? Should they be handed two lethal drinks and told to take them because of a form they signed 15 years ago?

I know some posters have said that that the final stages of dementia are always awful and I have to admit I have personally never seen someone progress beyond sub-stage 7a or 7b. I have heard though that if dementia sufferers survive long enough, they can no longer hold their heads up and their newborn reflexes return. That makes me wonder what they actually do experience? Might they experience the world in a similar way to a newborn?

Three of my relatives have died from/with dementia and two of them died from infections. I noticed that in their final years, their doctors reduced the amount of medical treatment they gave them. For example, it was decided not to treat one relative’s slow-growing cancer. And when they fell ill with their final infections, they were not hospitalised or given antibiotics. They both drifted away peacefully.

I believe they might have died at the right time for them, as one, despite being rather jolly and laughing often, could barely speak beyond a single, repeated word, and the other could still speak in sentences but had started spitting food out instead of eating normally.

I suppose my point is that many people with dementia do not reach the final sub-stages for a variety of reasons. My friend’s father only spent a few months in a care home before dying from pneumonia. Before this, his family had had the startling experience of seeing him change from an angry, bitter man into someone calmer and nicer.

Laughing is what is getting us through this so no worries!

I agree and that's why I think dementia will be an exception if/when AD is legalised in this country.

Doesn't change the fact that legally you can make that decision and carry it out. You seem very indignant that people can stop you, they can't as I've said you make your own decision but don't try to make that something that means others can be killed because they decided something years ago that they don't feel now.

Yes, I’m angry. Am I not only not allowed to choose my own guaranteed time to die but apparently I’m also not allowed to be angry about it? Anything else you want to stop me doing while you’re at it?

Please quote the post where I said they shouldn’t be allowed that right? What I have done, as have many, is pointed out the flaw in the plan. That’s different, isn’t it?

What about people who decide to end their own life for other reasons? They have made their own decision after all so shouldn't we try to stop them? My grandson held on to a girl for an hour and a half to stop her jumping off a bridge until police and ambulance arrived. The following day she found him on Facebook and thanked him as, by then, she had changed her mind.

I see your point. But the difference between being given the choice to manage your own finances/medical care etc after you've lost capacity, and managing decisions about euthanasia, is that there's a robust and well established (and yet very unsatisfactory in many ways) system for managing someone's money and general welfare after they've lost capacity, whether that's by the person's nominated attorneys via POA or professionals/the state. It isn't a case of simply and blindly following instructions left by the person before they lost capacity, you have to balance the person's expressed wishes prior to losing capacity against their current expressed wishes (considering how much they are able to understand/communicate) and an objective assessment with what's in their best interests. For instance, deciding if someone should be cared for at home or go into residential care, obviously any instructions left to attorneys should be followed as best as possible, plus if the person currently has an opinion either way that has to be taken into account - but even then the person's wishes may not be able to be followed because it just isn't in their best interests/safe for them, or in some instances even possible - this all predicated on the fundamental idea that their life still has value and their interests have to be protected. I can totally see why people would feel as though euthanasia for dementia could still be compatible with valuing life and the person's best interests in some circumstances, but it's far from straightforward, considering how very hard that is in practice to manage, and how many legal/moral/practical difficulties can arise about decisions like moving to a care home which are less momentous and more reversible than euthanasia.

I'm struggling to see how we could get to a place in the UK where we have a workable system for advance declarations for euthanasia of non-capatious persons - also bearing in mind the difficulties in agreeing the current bill which only ever proposed medical assistance for terminally ill adults with capacity so in many ways far more narrow a scope...