Are we wanting immortality?

[MsHeffaPiglet]

It's sad that people in care homes have died.

Does it matter whether they died because of cornavirus, rather than a general infection, from a fall, from a stroke or a heart attack or just old age?

If you are 80, 85, 90 or 95, isn't waking up each day a blessing. Does someone of that age expect or want to live forever?

I understand that you want to spend the last moments with loved ones and that is the cruellest thing with coronavirus and the need to isolate from everyone.

However, I just don't understand the shock, horror at the fact that elderly people in care homes have been affected so much. Is it so surprising?

“Is it a weird side effect of the Christian idea of an afterlife? Suicide was, I've read, made illegal because too many people found the idea of heaven more attractive than their unpleasant lives.”

I don’t know but it’s quite possible. Christianity has often concerned itself with controlling bodies.

Slaves in America were punished very severely for suicide attempts too.

“ Suicide was considered a mortal sin, hence people known to have committed suicide were denied the dignity of being buried in 'consecrated ground', which was a matter of shame for the family. “

See above about controlling bodies.

I’m not at all convinced that you have to be mentally ill to want to end your life at a time of your choosing..

....I also think that “mentally ill” is a very convenient substitute for “sinful”.

No, you obviously not everyone who commits suicide is mentally ill, but a lot of people who commit suicide have MH issues and have been tipped over the edge. (I should know, I've been suicidal in the past.)

I meant that most churches now understand that people who try to take their own lives need support and help and not judgement.

Fair enough mittens

On and off I have worked in care homes over 25 years. In various roles.

25 Years ago, it was very different. I worked in a huge Victorian institution run by the catholic church. Originally built to nurse the "mentally defective, the insane" and unmarried mothers. Many of the "old timers" were burnt out schizophrenics, and people with Bi-polar and personality disorder or they had learning disabilities. They were all up and walking around. Medicated, calm mostly, all exhibiting signs of trauma, and the side effects of medication.

All the new referrals were over 65 with dementia. Day 1-3 they were on their feet, pacing, bothering staff, restless, confused, anxious, scared, worried and often violent. Some smeared shit everywhere, others stripped off their clothing in public spaces, or fell over. They tried constantly to escape and were very distressed. Day 3-5 Off their feet, medicated and sedated, usually with drugs like haloperidol, and other strong anti-psychotics and sedatives. Unable to stand without assistance, drowsy and incoherent.Weeks- Months-Years......transferred between bed and chair and then eventually bed bound. Unable to move, speak, respond to you. Unable to swallow, didn't even recognise it was food. Nursed for years in a vegetative state, barely existing until they died, usually of pneumonia.

Today, 25 years later, Day 1-3 they were on their feet, pacing, bothering staff, restless, confused, anxious, scared, worried and often violent. Some smeared shit everywhere, others stripped off their clothing in public spaces, or fell over. They tried constantly to escape and were very distressed. Days 3-5 the same as before, week-Months-years...just as days 1-3. The philosophy is to give people as much freedom and autonomy as possible. To constantly look for capacity even where it just doesn't exist beyond a choice between "want a biscuit or do you want cake" and to not use drugs because "Drugging them up is cruel" They fall, they fight each other and they spend all day pulling off their nappies and asking "what is this". There is no dignity.

I haven't in 25 years ever met with an elderly person with advanced dementia (advanced enough to require 24 hr care) who is not anxious, agitated, scared and distressed, at least most of the time.

In both situations I have seen such awful cruelty, from staff. From staff that are worn down, not very well trained, demoralised, over worked and run ragged, and poorly paid and unappreciated.

I accept that some people, even those in care homes who have capacity, (in any real and meaningful sense) may still have some enjoyment in life. And I feel so desperately sad for the staff dealing with this huge increase in deaths, and the feeling that they have so little control, and I feel so sad for the relatives losing loved ones. But I believe in euthanasia. I believe a civilised society can be judged civilised by its treatment of its most vulnerable people. Until medical science can find a way to preserve the mind as well as the body, what is the bloody point.

For those people believing pneumonia is a painful death, it usually isn't at least not in the cases I have witnessed. I hope that might comfort some relatives, because I think it must be unbearably painful to not be able to say goodbye.

I'm not sure if i can even answer this.....

@eggandonion - that is really sad about your friend's mum being given a peg tube. When my mum was dying it was discussed but the medics said it was very invasive, painful and only likely to prolong life by days. I said no, and luckily the doctors refused too, (as my sibling wanted to try all sorts, was talking about operating as well!), even though our mum was suffering, not responding, and was clearly in the last few days of life.
I sadly agree with you that care homes will keep people alive for profit, against the best interests of the person.
I've signed an Advanced Directive; don't know why more people don't tbh.

I sadly agree with you that care homes will keep people alive for profit, against the best interests of the person.

They're definitely not all like that. The one MIL was in was genuinely caring. We were out of the country when she eventually died - but she certainly did not die alone.

I think the situation where siblings disagree must cause issues in the final days of life. My dh has a brother with a life science background who the others all listen to in terms of medication etc. My friend has a brother who is a doctor and I think supported the peg feeding, but it was left too late.
It is a very hard time for families with elderly members just now, whether at home, or in homes; also for people with relations in residential care.

Sorry I don't mean they aren't caring and that staff aren't caring, more the culture that has developed of keeping treating very old, incredibly frail, people with severe dementia, alive with antibiotics for too long, is seen as the 'right thing to do,' when so often it clearly isn't.

I wonder who's next for the chop once we've disposed of the elderly as past their use by date?

Realistically do many die peacefully in their sleep? I don’t work in a care home so don’t know but I’d have thought it would be mainly from simple virus’ and infections that they can’t fight off

I love outside now. How wonderful would it be to have only five or ten per cent of the current population. Well its not going to make a difference for a few old to be gone is it, so we need to stop viewing old people as part of a collective and allowing them to die for being deadweight

I wonder who's next for the chop once we've disposed of the elderly as past their use by date?

I'm really sick of these kinds of comments. If you don't have memories of a close family member's slow, torturous decline into constant pain, confusion and indignity. If you don't have decisions about a loved one's care and treatment that keep you up at night and fill you with a sense of betrayal. If you've never sat in a care home car park with tears rolling down your cheeks and the image of frightened and confused eyes burned on your retinas then count yourself lucky. And don't come and lecture those of us who have.

I'm really sick of these kinds of comments.... And don't come and lecture those of us who have.

Yes... some people posting on this thread can't have a clue. I sincerely hope they never do, tbh, the situations some of us are discussing aren't to be wished on anyone or their families.

And don't come and lecture those of us who have

How on earth would you know what I've seen or haven't seen?

Society is taking a sharp turn atm in favour of eugenics, and it's extremely troubling, especially as many of the arguments in this thread are familiar (and troubling) to those of us with experience of ableism and disability.

My dm died in a care home. She had Alzheimer’s. For the last three months of her life she was fed in a way that made me think of geese being force fed for foie gras. It was barbaric. I was so glad for her when she died. It is an atrocious end to a life.

They seem to be blaming all deaths on covid-19 think there's money involved x

My grandma died of Alzheimers some 25 years ago as did her mother, and it was literally hell on earth.

When I read the head of the WHO saying that half the covid19 deaths were in care homes was an 'unimaginable human tragedy' I thought, have you not been around and actually seen a fair few things, like many millions of children dying from preventable causes e.g. diarrhoea/starvation each year?

Society is taking a sharp turn atm in favour of eugenics

This opinion has nothing to do with what is being discussed here? Eugenics is selective breeding, selectively mating people with so called desirable genetic traits in order to "breed out" hereditary disease or disability.
The elderly aren't breeding!

Perhaps you have misunderstood the reference to care home patients and assumed people were including social care homes for 18-65 year-olds with learning or physical disabilities? That's a wrong assumption.

Can you give any examples of disableist comments on here?

For me it’s the not being able too see them or say goodbye. My grandma is in a care home, she is in her nineties. We are know she is frail but we normally see her every week, she is currently lonely and I hate the idea of her last months being like this. Not being able to say makes the grieving process harder for lots too.

My father is in a care home with vascular dementia. He is 85, doubly incontinent, can't speak, and has no quality of life. Personally I think it might not be a bad thing if he caught the virus. Most dementia deaths aren't very nice anyway. A good proportion of the other residents are similar.

Society is taking a sharp turn atm in favour of eugenics

Clare is right. I think you don’t really understand what eugenics means because it doesn’t mean what you are implying it does. Eugenics refers to selective breeding.

MiniTheMinx thank you for that informative post.

My dad, I am coming to think, may be one of the exceptions to your observations. He died of an unusual kind of dementia that attacks movements and visual perception whilst leaving memory, intellect and personality intact until movement is more or less gone (it's the kind of dementia that Terry Pratchett died of - I forget its name now).

He and I were convinced he must have a stroke or some other cause until we got a proper diagnosis - we knew it wasn't ordinary Alzheimers. After the diagnosis I told him the truth and he accepted it and essentially began to "let go" of life.

Anyway, he enjoyed our phone calls and I was able to comfort him on the phone up to a couple of weeks before he died. The last time I saw him he was losing the use of his mouth muscles but said "take care of yourself". He probably didn't need the morphine he got in the last week but I'm bloody glad he got it (a carer caused him slight pain which justified the prescription) as it meant that he moved very quickly from wishing he could get out into the garden to snoozing to a peaceful end.

The more I learn about dementia the more lucky I realise we were.