How long can people live like this?

[HoppityBun]

This might seem callous, but I don’t mean it to be. The thing is, I’m bewildered about how long elderly, bedbound people in their 90s can continue to exist. I’ve got several relatives in this situation. One I know wishes that she had died several years ago: I know because she says so when her children aren’t around. One of the other others, actually it’s hard to tell but she focusses on the next meal, or tea, or sweets, and seems ok. Has a few UTIs and once had a very low breathing rate but was revived. The other, seems to be ok, but at other time seems to be sad and has twice commented that they “just wanted to be all over“.

They’re all in nursing homes, all mid 90s, all bedbound and I just don’t understand how it is that they continue to survive when they are not eating much and not getting any exercise. This has been going on since 2020 for one of them and 2-4 years for the other two.

It seems extraordinary to me and, to be honest, it’s getting family members down. I suppose it’s anticipatory grief, which we’re all warned against.

I’d be interested to know because the way things are going they could all live for another five or six years it seems to me. Gradually declining and getting thinner and paler, but just sort of existing. I don’t want that for myself and I hardly recognise them when I look at them, for the people they used to be. Has anybody else come across this? It’s particularly extraordinary because they’ve lived lives that I would have thought are contrary to all we told about healthy living. Granted, none of them ever drank or smoked, but none took any exercise that I remember. Yet still they are here.

How can the body go on existing?

I totally agree with all that. And yes, the right-wingers are a terrible threat. Look at the States. And relatives could be a threat, too, as evidenced in this thread.

I’m comforted by remembering that most places that have euthanasia reserve it for the seriously ill. I think in Belgium you can get it for mental health problems, but it is a process.

As far as I’m aware, it’s not available anywhere just because someone is old. The problems with that have been well-demonstrated in this thread. Not least pushy relatives who are tired of the situation. I mean, can you imagine? Yikes! These issues are pretty obvious, so if we did have it, it would probably be limited to those facing terminal illnesses.

Even then, though, people could be subject to pressure from sinister family.

So does Harold Shipman

I'm in London, live in one carer for my parent at home is £7.5 k a month

I am a person who, if I was an mp, you are shaming. My dad died of Lewy bodies dementia, and like this lady lived and recovered from near death multiple times in what can only be described as an obscene disease.

in principle I was supportive, and still am, of assisted dying. But the act was thrown out because it was badly written, with many safe guards being removed and universal condemnation by just about every expert or representative of people potentially in position to request assisted dying that was comsulted. The lobby groups involved in that private members bill were the same as the now infamous VELS with their association with eugenics. Not a good look. It should never have been taken forward as a private members bill .

there also remains a huge question for me on how we will actually kill people. As poster states, and maybe your experience knows, it transpires it is quite hard to kill people if you aren’t prepared to shoot them. Or hang them. Or any other violent catastrophic ending. But that’s too nasty to witness, so we use drugs when you can’t see externally what’s happening to the body. We have all just heard about an appalling failed execution in states, and that’s just the one we’ve heard about. It happens all the time. And boy, USA have years of practice trying to kill people. China do it more successfully by just shooting. We also know there is a lack of any scientifically reliable method from the reported failures in all countries with assisted dyeing. Read up peoples accounts of witnessing their loved ones go through painful, prolonged dying after taking these cocktail of drugs. It’s not in interests of groups like dignatas to voluntarily publish their process outcomes, and no one is gathering Clincial trial type data to find out exactly how to kill people without pain, discomfort and a significant chance of prolonged dying. And failure. Until sufficient data is collected, and assisted dying organisations around the world voluntarily report fully on Clincial outcomes for every assisted death they attempt, I do not believe we should be exposing people to false promises that there’s an “easy” way to die.

the shit reality is that many of the cases the OP describe, have consciously or unconsciously decided to exercise their rights to stop eating largely , known as VSED. It does work, albeit eventually, but arguably more reliably than assisted dying using drugs. my dad did that. It took 11 months. And yes it was a relief, albeit sad, when he died.

So, whilst you may disagree with MPs whose opinions mirror mine, everyone has their own experience and opinions, that may differ form yours, but are equally valid and moral and ethical in their intent. Stop shaming people who reached a different conclusion than you. And rememebr no one on any side of this argument wants to watch people suffer needlessly unless they are a psychopath. Most individuals in HOC and HOL are thankfully not psychopaths are they?

The debate ran its course, hearings were held, the course of law making was followed, the bill was defeated . it will in a few years return I’m sure, hopefully with a much better process of safeguarding that more law makers feel reassured by to pass. If only then we could just figure out how to actually kill people! Personally I’d choose a quick shot to the hesd, but I guess my family would think that’s a bit messy and violent

No. But there should be a range of choices to set limits on medical interventions.

As well as my late DMIL's experience, our family has an aged DF. He's very confused but generally in good health at nearly 94. He is lovingly cared for by his wife at home but susceptible to UTIs which hit hard and usually require a spell in hospital from which (so far) he has returned in filthy clothes and unkempt. But it is exacting a shocking toll on our stepmother, who has her own health issues. If anything were to happen to her....

OP, I totally agree. The insistence on prolonging life, i.e. existence, at all costs (and I don't mean material), is creating suffering for humans that we would never allow for animals, for example.

My father died in his 60s after a short illness. He was fit and well up until then. I was 17. My mum outlived him by nearly 30 years, dying at 94 with dementia. I’m in my 60s now and certainly don’t feel ready to die yet, but don’t want to end up like my mother either. Surely there is a happy medium.

The last of my elderly relatives died 5yrs ago. Nearly 100, had outlived their numerous siblings, a good number of nieces and nephews, all their friends. The last 10yrs were no fun for anyone, mostly them.
Years ago we got old, ill and shuffled off quickly. Now we get old, ill, and modern medicine patches us up so we can cling on for another 6mths, and then another 6mths and then before you know it you’ve spent a decade chair/bed bound with a miserable quality of life.
When my parents died (cancer) pre Shipman, our family GP came out and gave them drugs that put them to sleep and they were gone in hours. My experience of modern elderly care is that they strive and strive to keep alive regardless of quality of life. They were in far worse state than my parents were, but letting nature take its course no longer seems to be an option however ill you are and how miserable you are. Something needs to change.

Over 90, the chances of dementia are one in three. I wish it were only 10%

My mum was bedridden and in a care home for over 8 years, before she died at 93. It wasn't all bad, as for most of that time she was compos mentis and actually quite sharp, so she was still able to get pleasure from some things. She did occasionally say though that she wished the health failure that had put her in the home had been fatal.

In her last year she declined severely, and eventually she was mostly asleep, didn't always know what was going on, and was given a month to live. She was moved to a nursing home, where she rallied a bit, but she hated it there. At that point I guess she gave up on life as she basically stopped eating. Well, it's surprising how long a person can live just drinking coffee, with the odd teaspoon of yoghurt or, if the staff could get her to take it, some of a nutritional drink. She lived for 6 months like that, in absolute misery.

I don't know what the answer is there. Towards the end she had NO HOSPITAL ADMISSION on her Respect form, and was only getting painkillers I think. She didn't have a terminal illness for which treatment could have been stopped. So, while at her stage of life I would probably agree with letting illnesses take their course, there was no such illness in my mum's case. Incidentally, a few people I talked to were shocked that the home hadn't put her on a drip feed, to keep her going - but I just said, "What for?"

Hardly an ‘achievement’ just to continue existing!

The botched execution is because pharmaceutical companies companies won’t allow drugs to be used in death penalty cases. So the drugs are sourced from compounders which is dodgy as fuck. Licenced doctors / nurses are prohibited from participating by their medical bodies.

So essentially you have drugs sourced from whoever will make with no guarantee to their efficacy and staff who are not licensed medical professionals. Tbh it’d of been more of a surprise if the execution had been successful.

When you have licensed drugs, properly stored and administered by professionals then it tends to be much more straightforward.

Yes but it’s upsetting to themselves.

Care homes are big business. I pray I go before I ever have to step foot in one.

I absolutely understand what you are saying and in a perfect world we would feel no remorse, but of course the whole assisted dying is fraught with danger.
Its just too open to corruption right now in my eyes.
I hope that we can find a middle path such as no intervention and pain relief but I know what you mean.

If I'm in that situation myself, don't you shoot me, but I'd like the option to do it myself. If I'm unable to do anything for myself, and in severe pain every day, then I might want a way to end it, and if I'm very incapacitated that might need help from other people.

The trouble is, if they need a lot of help over a couple of decades, potentially two of them, that can be the last two decades of their child’s working life. It stops you being able to get anywhere in life, your whole future is just about them, they often have no vision for you doing anything with your life other than helping them, no thought for the impact on your future finances, pension, ability to restart your career once they’re gone or the emotional impact of it all on you. Life is just all about them.
But they didn’t actually have to do any of this themselves because their own parents weren’t kept alive forever by the NHS and its endless checks, tests and operations. It means you’ve got one generation who have vastly outlived the previous generation and will leave the generation after them in a much poorer financial position than they were in, having had a much more difficult life.
Looking after elderly people is no walk in the park. If they’re lovely, then it’s hard to see the suffering they’re going through and you desperately don’t want them to die. If they’re difficult, they’ll take all their anger out on you and make your life a misery.

All the 90 plus year olds I know or have known didn't seem to be in terrible nick though obviously some of them have passed away so the last few weeks might have been deterioration very quickly. My great aunt was 104 when she died. She was quite well and active until late 90s. But I've also known people in their 60s who had dementia.

Yes. My mum has strongly stated that she will die in her home not a 'care' home. I hope she gets her wish.

So did my mum. She was lucky she came and lived with me, but if that hadn’t been possible she would, unfortunately, have had to go in a home as she was leaving her home at all times during the night, which was extremely worrying. I’m very glad I was in a position to have her with me (and all door keys safely put away).

We are going through this with a family member. They are bedbound, doubly incontinent, don’t know where or who they are and spend their days babbling incoherently to themselves. They have a whole host of medical conditions that if left untreated would result in a painless death within a few weeks tops. But family insist on keeping them alive at all costs. Four hospital admissions now in the last eight weeks for the sane ongoing issue that family want treating. Doctors seem to agree mostly (one suggested palliative care and was shot down by family). So they go into hospital, has distressing invasive treatment, discharge back to home, back in hospital within a week. Family want them home, they say they won’t give up on him. But family member isn’t going to recover to any kind of comfortable state. It’s incredibly selfish in my opinion and family nember would not have wanted to exist like this.

it’s been going on for years and years. Our life has been on hold.

I won’t allow my dc to become my carers

Agreed. Those aren't the scenarios I'm referring to.

@JeffLebowski “I want the option of assisted dying so that I can make the choice to check out on my terms if/when I get to that position.”

This is what I want too.

they usually die within a day or two of private funding running out and it being solely down to local authority... suddenly poof! dead.

Really???? Do you have a link to support this?

That’s such an entitled point of view, and very western. Who do you expect will look at your older relatives? You would moan if you had to pay for it but won’t do it yourself. You would also probably have expected them to babysit your children for you when they were younger and able. In countries such as India and Thailand elders are respected and looking after them if just part of the younger generations lives.