Does anyone else dread old age based on their own parents situation (dementia)??

[WearsblackLoveschocolateAvoidspeople]

I really do want to live to a ripe old age.

However, I don't want to live like my parents. My poor mum bent over with osteoporosis, with a pacemaker due to heart disease, confused to hell due to her 6 year long journey with Alzheimer's and now with the added addition of a breast cancer diagnosis.

Nor do I want to live like my dad who, at almost 83 is actually in great health but is angry, bitter and depressed because he secretly resents my mum's illnesses and says he may as well have dementia because his life is over and who will put lots of pressure on his two daughters (who each have their own health issues) to come round as much as possible (4-5 times a week in my case) and help because he really doesn't want to spend too much of his ££££'s savings and is also stressed at the thought of all the money he's worked hard for (worked until he was in his late 70's) and inherited has to be all spent on extortionate care home costs.

No, I want to live like my 92 year old neighbour (who looks about 70), who still drives, almost jogs to the local shop every morning to get his paper, who has a brain as sharp as a 20 something and seems to be loving every day on this planet.

I know everything in life is just a great big stroke of luck but I watching my own parents suffer has made me so fearful of old age but especially dementia, it takes so much away from everyone involved, it truly is the thief of joy.

Yes. I'm afraid of a lot of diseases and conditions. I work in a stroke team. I'm trying to improve my health but I'm at increased risk of diabetes which has huge knock-on risks of lots of other things.

I want to die while life is still good - to go with regrets. My advanced refusal of treatment if i lose mental capacity is in my GP's records so I hope that will help.

But I hope I'm brave enough to die at 75, and I hope that's not too late when the time comes. I've seen plenty of people having good lives at much older than that but the risk of comprehensive shitness post 80 look too high to me.

If I'm still alive at 80 i'll be going to dignitas.

I won't have an 80 something birthday. 80 will be my last (or before, obviously).

Do there? Not being argumentative but I genuinely have seen nothing like this.

I doubt if you will actually do that though. It’s one thing to talk about it as an abstract idea and quite another to actually do it.

Yes I do think it's one of those things that are easier to discuss in theory. I know in the 80s when the threat of nuclear war felt quite real DF as a scientist had managed to lay his hands on some cyanide which he and DM were planning to take in the event of a nuclear bomb.

I do sometimes wonder if they still have it. I know that sounds absolutely awful but DF 90 has said many times he would hate to be in a care home but if anything happens to DM 85 it's inevitable as he can't look after himself as he has mild dementia and also has never had to do it so can't really.

What i've learnt from working with the elderly for 40 years is that as long as the heart is ok, and they are medicated for their other conditions, have 3 meals and day and medication given by carers, then they just seem to go on forever,

Someone I know worked as a carer for a while. Many of her clients were in their nineties living in huge houses with carers coming in. Most were confined to a couple of rooms on one floor. Many of them said to her that they wished they were dead. Partners and friends were dead and they hated their lives. My own mother in law said she had had enough in her late eighties. She had a stroke and starved herself to death .

A good friend of mine was a perfect daughter, cared for her mother at home who was a nice woman with some major memory difficulties, severe physical difficulties including chronic pain... the mum was devastated to wake up every morning and just wanted to die for at least three years, finally had a traumatic death at home aged 98, my friend is still recovering. On the national stats that will look like a total success but to most of us that sounds hideous.

My mum tells me every day she wants to die, I no longer know what to say to her because I’m sure most people in her position would feel the same, it crushes my heart every time she says this.

My parents never set anything up for their older years. Only a few years ago mum was out with friends, looking after the gc or volunteering and dad was out on his motorcycle or on the golf course but now they are stuck in their large (too large for two people) 100 year old bungalow. One saving grace is they are on one floor but it is starting to become a huge noose around dads neck but he point blank refused to even discuss moving somewhere smaller, newer and more manageable now they are trapped.

I hope euthanasia will be legalised here by the time I'm old.

I really feel for your friend. It is such a hidden issue, most people have zero idea of the hell which is dementia (for both the sufferers and those caring for them).

This is such a common story. I have heard it from friends about their parents. I have tried to persuade my mother to leave her flat with stairs but she won’t listen.

Recommend reading Outlive by Peter Attia mentioned upthread. Some of it is a bit heavy science but I’m finding it fascinating and it may give some of you hope/inspiration to actions you can do now to reduce probability of poor outcomes in later life. peterattiamd.com/outlive/

I’ll take a look at that, thanks

It must be very hard to hear a parent constantly say they want to die. My mother never said that, and she can't say anything now and doesn't appear to have the capacity to think that thought.

Staying in the wrong house is such a common issue @WearsblackLoveschocolateAvoidspeople
Once you get past a certain point it is virtually impossible to accomplish because you want to stay with the familiar. My grandparents intended to downsize to a ground floor flat, but they loved their house and garden and they were very healthy in their early 80s. A few years later when it all stopped being fine, they were stuck in their house.

I think people have the wrong idea about Dignitas. You can't just show up because you've reached a certain age and want to die before illness strikes. You have to fit their criteria.

• a disease which will lead to death (terminal illness), and/or
• an unendurable incapacitating disability, and/or
• unbearable and uncontrollable pain.

Yep sadly its a difficult heartbreaking learning curve and it also forces you to think about your own future. An advanced directive is on my to do list ( though I’m not sure it would stand if I get dementia) and we intend to move into a very nice rented retirement flat when we get to 70 (14 years time) . We’ve already chosen it ftom the outside , near shops restaurants and transport. Will sell or rent out our house. We are going to make it as easy as we can for ourselves and especially for our kids.

Yes, sadly it is too late for my parents to move. It would completely confuse mum.

Last year Dad removed the bath and replaced it with a walk in shower to make it easier for the carer. This has completely thrown my mum, she just can't get used to the fact the bath which had stood there for 20+ years isn't there anymore, her poor brain just can not comprehend it.

I think some of our friends think we are a bit mad thinking about this already but if you’ve not walked the dementia path with a loved one I don’t think you can fully understand .

The trouble is moving into a retirement flat means no visitors including visiting children and grandchildren unless you have the space. It’s a dilemma.

My beautiful mum would have said exactly the same . Live your lives, I’ve lived mine. I can hear the person she was saying it to me.
Once dementia sets in it’s different. They need us. God help anyone thats got no one supporting them but for a couple of half hour carer visits a day. So we are under constant pressure and if my mum realized it she would be devastated.

True. So far our kids and grandchild live nearby and we’re in a big city with lots of airbnb ( no moving to the country or spain for us !!) but yes it is something to consider ….

I'm definitely going to refuse the flu vaccine when I get older, late 70s. It used to be the old man's friend. I think I'd rather take a chance.

I did wonder if I should get dm vaccinated against covid, as I thought it a much better end than dementia, but she wasn't too poorly then and I just didn't want to lose her.

I haven’t had flu in 20’years!

I am absolutely dreading old age (if I get old, of course - I'm also very scared of dying young as I've lost 3 friends in the last couple of years and a 4th is now gravely ill too).

My mum is 76, fit and well in general but (understandably) exhausted and resentful now. She's a very negative person anyway and has always been full of self loathing, but she's caring for my 85 year old Dad now. He's disabled and very frail after a severe stroke 3 years ago (had been very fit and well before), followed by cancer and 6 rounds of chemo just 6 months later. The stroke in particular decimated his physical and mental health, and the cancer knocked him back a lot and limited his recovery.

Mum has been telling me since she was about 50 that it only gets worse, nothing to look forward to, old age is bloody awful, etc etc. There's a limit to how much we can help (full time work/families/living 3 hours away) but both my brother and I would like to do more and are blocked at every turn. I find it incredibly hard work these days and am frankly dreading getting older. I pray I can have a different attitude but perhaps it really is just a hideous unrelenting groundhog day and I'll be the same. I'm generally an optimistic person (more like my Dad pre-stroke), but feel this creeping sense of misery and dread a lot these days. I'm 51 and really need to work hard and make some lifestyle changes to try to stay positive about ageing and enjoy life as much as I can.

Yep. My mum did absolutely everything right, lived a healthy and brain-stimulating life and still got it. Also i took way better care of her than my one child is likely to of me!